Murder of Sable Cicada
by HarborRat
Summary: DW Film Noir style AU set in 1939 America.  Sable Cicada is on the verge of becoming a huge star however she is murdered and everyone is a suspect. Private eye Sun Shang Xiang is hired to find out who did it and ends up with more than she bargained for.
1. The Fallen Star

Disclaimer: Dynasty Warriors is property of KOEI-Tecmo. No copyright infringement is intended, this is simply a non-profit piece of fanfiction.

Summary: Dynasty Warriors AU set in 1939 America in the style of Film Noir. Sable Cicada is on the verge of becoming a star. However she is shot after the premiere of her latest play and everyone is a suspect. Private eye Sun Shang Xiang is hired to find out who did it.

* * *

The Murder of Sable Cicada

Chapter 1

The Fallen Star

* * *

_May 2, 1939 Star Slain at Play Premiere_

The newsprint headline was a harsh reminder that life and death were as simple as black and white, no matter how colorful and extravagant a life was. Another victim of popularity or perhaps jealousy, the beautiful actress was now nothing more than a corpse on a metal slab. Perhaps it was an act of mercy, saving the beauty from the inevitable fade from the limelight or worse…aging. Was it better to die or fade away into obscurity?

Sun Shang Xiang looked up from the newspaper as a knock on the office door interrupted her thoughts. She was comfortably sitting with her feet up on her desk and the swivel chair as far back as it could go without tipping. She sighed, knowing that her assistant was out to lunch and she couldn't pass up an opportunity to possibly pay him, the rent or even afford to buy the paper in her hand instead of digging it out of the trash. "Come on in!"

She threw the paper on the desk and swiveled to the left to get her feet back on the ground. By the time the chair had made a full turn and her feet were on the floor, the man was already standing in her office. She quickly assessed him: his meticulous beard and mustache were trimmed perfectly, his suit clean and tidy and his fedora not the least bit ragged. He was a rarity these days: a man with enough money to keep himself looking good. Not that a man like him could look anything but good.

She stood and adjusted the shoulder holster that held her trusty Colt New Service .45 revolver next to her breast. Unfortunately the only reason a man like this would end up in her office was if he was here to collect a debt. "You can get in line with the rest of them."

Zhang Liao cocked an eyebrow and took a step back to glance in the main portion of the office. It was empty. He looked back at the woman with round green eyes and queried, "Who? The waiting room is empty."

"The other bill collectors." Shang snorted and put her hands on her hips.

Liao admired the view. Her white blouse was unbuttoned and the shoulder holster was not made with a busty woman in mind. "I was actually here to see about hiring you."

She waved to the seat in front of the desk as if she hadn't just bitten his head off for coming into his office looking presentable. "Have a seat."

Liao took his hat off and put it on the hat rack next to the door. He unbuttoned his suit as he sat down in the uncomfortable wooden chair.

Shang sat down and reached for her notepad and a pencil. "What can I help you with, Mr….?"

"Zhang Liao." He responded and reached forward to tap the newspaper in front of her. "And I would like to hire you to find out who killed 'Sable Cicada' or as I knew her, Diao Chan."

Shang took a deep breathe. Of course he had to be an idiot, he was hot. They're always morons or bastards. "Mr. Zhang, I hate to be rude but I think you might find out in the next few days quite a few other men were part of her life…"

"Allow me to familiarize you with my situation. My boss, and best friend, is her fiancé. He's being framed for this despite damned near every man, and a few women, in this town wanting her dead. Unfortunately, I doubt the police are all too interested in letting the opportunity to put Lu Bu behind bars slip them by. I need to find out who killed her to do that."

"Then why aren't you doing just that, Mr. Zhang? You have more connections than me and more effective methods of finding answers as well." Shang couldn't believe her luck. If word got out that she was even meeting with a man affiliated with Lu Bu….

"Nothing I find will be considered legitimate evidence. You are a third party private investigator, whatever evidence you turn up would actually be admissible in court. Besides, Chan was murdered in your Father's casino. I imagine you have better access than anyone to…"

"I'm not exactly on the best terms with my father." She said dryly. "However I do see your point."

"Will you take the case?" He asked.

She looked at the paper and the photo of a white sheet covering a body on the dining room floor. About all she was really thinking about was the steak on the table in the foreground. Her stomach growled as she thought about it and her answer was quick to hide the gurgle "Yes."

"Then perhaps you'll have lunch with me so I can fill you in on the details." He watched her green eyes light up and a smile spread across her face.

"As long as I'm not going to end up like her, the victim of your girlfriend's jealous rage." She grinned and pulled her jacket off the chair.

He had to admire her observation skills; she had scanned his hands for a wedding ring already. "No girlfriend, I'm a bit too dedicated to my work."

"Want to fill me in on what that is, just to satisfy my curiosity?" She asked as he stood and went to retrieve his hat.

Liao set his hat back on his head and smiled at her. "I have to retain some mystery about me; I doubt you'd be all that interested in having lunch with a man you could read like a book."

_You have no idea the kind of man I fall for…_"Just as long as you're prepared to be under my scrutiny as well…."

"I would expect no less, Miss Sun."

"Good. I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were paying for."

* * *

"Quite honestly I was more interested in playing cards than watching her perform." Liao stirred his coffee and thought about that night again. "I can't rule out anyone; damned near everyone was there that night."

"Start by telling me who you were playing with and who the dealer was." Shang looked up as she poised the pencil over her notebook.

"Planning on checking my alibi?"

"I don't rule anyone out." She watched him set his spoon on the table and raise the mug to his lips.

"What about you? This certainly can't be good for business and you've already admitted to having poor relations with your father."

She had to grin as he looked at her over the mug as he drank. "You might be in the wrong business; you're not so bad at being a detective."

"You still haven't figured out what my business is." He set the mug back down and leaned back in the booth. "Perhaps I should give you some advice before you begin this job. It will be beneficial to us both if I do."

"Oh? What's that?"

"Set aside your preconceived notions about who people are. It might surprise you who the bad guys are and what the good guys really do. Nobody is who you think they are."

"Even you?"

"Where's the fun in telling you now? I might not get to take you to dinner."

She didn't bother to hide her smile; she really did like his style. "What can you tell me about her murder then? I don't always trust what I read in the paper."

"Last night was the premier of her play, _The Wizard of Oz_, at the Imperial Seal's theatre. The play went well, a standing ovation from what I hear, and then they rolled down the movie screen and showed one of her films. The plan was to have her standing in the dining room when the show let out so that her adoring fans could see the hometown star. Quite the elaborate evening: Play, film, dinner and dancing with the beauty. A special send off, her manager said it was on to Hollywood from there. However, that is where things went wrong. There was a gunshot and when those theatre doors opened, Sable Cicada was face down in a puddle of her own blood."

"Where were you?"

"Playing cards."

"Did you investigate that gunshot?"

"Yes." He set his coffee down on the table as if it suddenly had a bitter taste to it. "I got there in time to see my best friend throw open the doors to the hall and run to the woman he loved. She was shot in the heart, the blood was just oozing out of her and he sat on the floor and held her until the police arrived."

"Where is he now?" She asked dreading the answer.

"They took him downtown for questioning. He spent the night at the precinct. I'm on my way to pick him up after we're done here."

"Can I talk with him?"

Liao smiled at the waitress as she delivered his lunch. "Not today."

"Mr. Zhang if I'm going to do my job…"

"Impatient, aren't you?" He cut her off and returned to drinking his coffee. "Give him a day to sort things out. Come out to see us tomorrow if you want to question him, I'll buy you lunch again to make up for the inconvenience."

She watched him wrap his sandwich in his handkerchief then reach for his wallet to pay the tab. She looked at her meal, still untouched. "Leaving me so soon?"

"Don't sound so sad to see me go." He tossed some money on the table and put his wallet away. "I need to get my friend home before he gives them a reason to keep him behind bars."

She looked at him as he stood. "Where exactly would you like me to meet you tomorrow?"

"Xia Pi." He watched her face wrinkle in disgust at the mention of it. "Home."

"Then you'll have to pick me up at the Pu Yang station, I'm not really big on the idea of hiking into the backwoods in these shoes."

"The train arrives at noon, I'll see you then." He set his hat on his head and touched the brim in a silent salute. Then he picked up the sandwich he bought for Lu Bu and headed to the car.

* * *

Shang returned to the office and looked at the clock. It was well after 3pm now and that meant her assistant was at his real job. An old classmate, Lu Xun had agreed to work with her when she started her very first investigation five years ago. He had a paying job as a newsboy and had access to the newsroom and archives that were out of reach to her. Besides, just like everyone else in these times, he needed any money he could get his hands on. In those days, she was still living off the money she had been given from her father. That dried up, along with any other prospects of income years ago.

She walked into her office and prepared to get comfortable for a long night of work. Her eyes were immediately drawn back to the newspaper on her desk. It was also time to get to know Sable Cicada a little better than she did. She slipped out of her jacket and shoulder holster, then flopped down on the couch that served as her bed. One benefit to barely being able to afford the rent on an office was that you could also make it your home. How far she had come from her days as Sun Jian's spoiled daughter.

She closed her eyes. She wasn't that naïve girl anymore. She knew that her father was more than just a successful businessman who owned Chang An's only high class gambling establishment. He had earned enough running speakeasies during the prohibition to finance the grand building that was the Imperial Seal Casino. He bent the rules, paid men off and even tried to marry his daughter to his main liquor supplier to keep the bar stocked. Worse, she fell for the man. So she knew first hand that nothing happened in that casino that her father did not know about.

So it all came back to a pretty dead actress that was at the Imperial Seal for the debut of the play _Wizard of Oz_. With the rumors of Hollywood making a movie based on the novel, it was a perfect way to capitalize on the free publicity. Shang flipped to the obituary section where she knew a more objective article of the woman could be found. She knew she could count on the facts here, the Obits were written by her old professor from the Sun Tzu University. Lu Meng was now unemployed thanks to the Great Depression and found work as a freelance reporter for the paper.

Shang leaned her head back and began to read about the dead girl. Her stage name was Sable Cicada, but her real name was Diao Chan and she was the adopted daughter of her manager, Wang Yun. Shang could almost hear her old teacher griping about how her adoption leaves her actual age in question. She was born in 1919 which made her about four years younger than Shang. She looked at the publicity photo to see if it could betray whatever lies were told to make her more fitting to the public eye.

Her obituary went on to talk about minor details in her film and stage career. She was a beauty who could act, sing and dance and it was only a matter of time before she was the next 'It' girl. It was factual, concise and a fitting tribute. What it did not tell was who Diao Chan was before she took her stage name and stepped into the public eye. What she really wanted to know were the scandalous details; that's where her answers were going to be. That was something she would have to find out from either her fiancé or father, considering her client's connections it seemed more fathomable to get information from Lu Bu.

Perhaps she could fill in the missing details based upon what she already knew about Chang An. Cao Cao was the railroad baron and a notorious womanizer. His reputation was something legends were made of and if Sable Cicada was anyone than she had been with him at some point. Sima Yi made his fortune with oil and spent his spare time pissing off her father's head of security at the Imperial Seal. He didn't need the money, he just amused himself by aggravating Zhou Yu who insisted he was cheating but could not figure out how. She was always suspicious of anyone who made Zhou Yu edgy but she didn't know if he had motive. Unless he was interested in her father's casino.

She tilted her head back and looked at the ceiling. Where exactly did she draw the line? Could she honestly imagine Yuan Shao wanting to steal some actress away into his coal mine and seduce her? What about Zhen Ji, the former silent film star, or Cai Wengi who used to captivate audiences with their music before Sable Cicada showed up and played the part better? Starting tomorrow she was going to start asking everyone questions. Of course she was going to be meeting Zhang Liao again for lunch out in Xia Pi so he could provide her with more information, so that left her little time to chase men all over the city.

She scanned the front page again. She simply just didn't know where to start. Worse, she couldn't get her client off her mind. She had already been down that road and knew it simply lead here…to this horribly uncomfortable couch and an empty stomach.

* * *

"Mornin'!"

Shang groaned as the chipper voice of Lu Xun woke her. "What ungodly hour is it?"

"8 am." Xun glanced in her office, not wanting to step in and catch her indecent, but curious if anything was different. "I see you've been working."

"Yeah, we have a job."

"Really?" Xun forgot his earlier worries about her state of undress and darted in the room to see if it was the truth.

"Might as well be solving the question of 'Why are we here'?"

Xun's eyes scanned the newspaper and the pencil marks underlining key facts in the article. "Sable Cicada? The actress?"

"I've been hired to find out who killed her and clear Lu Bu's name."

"Lu Bu, came to you for help?"

"Not quite." Shang rubbed her neck. The first thing she was going to do after she got paid was burn this damned couch and buy a bed. "His best friend, Zhang Liao."

"Now that's what I call a good friend." Xun rubbed his hands together. "Where do we start?"

"With Zhang Liao."

"You want to make sure he can pay you? It's going to be a really sad state of affairs if even the Gangsters are broke." Xun sat down and reached for a piece of paper.

"I wouldn't put it past someone to hire a private investigator to disqualify themselves as a suspect. However I just want to know who I'm dealing with."

"Right." Xun scratched out a few notes. "What else?"

"See if you can find any records in city hall about her. Name change, adoption records, birth certificate. She wasn't just born a star; she had to come from somewhere."

"Who do you suspect?"

"Xun, I hope I can answer that for you tomorrow."

"Why? What are you up to?" He asked, knowing her style of investigating.

"I have lunch with Zhang Liao at noon out at Xia Pi. I hope I can meet with Lu Bu today to clarify who exactly Diao Chan was and why someone wanted her, or her alter ego, dead."

"Xia Pi?" Xun asked. "You're having lunch with a client in a Shantytown?"

"His choice." She shrugged and sniffed her shirt. She was going to have to put on her other shirt for today's adventures.

"Be careful." He said and wished he didn't have to be in town for his afternoon paper route or he would be accompanying her.

"Me?" She chuckled. "I'm the embodiment of caution."

"Sunny, the sinking of the Maine in San Juan harbor was subtle compared to your approach."

"Some men like forward women." She looked at herself in the mirror. She looked like a woman who had slept on a couch from hell in her clothes.

"Letting some guy you don't know, who you just ordered me to profile, take you to a secluded location for lunch is more along the lines of a suicidal woman. Especially after his best friend's girl turns up dead."

"It's a living." She said and gave him a look that said he needed to get out so she could try and clean up in the small water closet.

* * *

Sun Shang Xiang never really thought of herself as a lucky girl. However, today she felt a tingle down her spine as she stood on the railroad platform and watched Cao Cao board his private railway car. The plan had been to take the train from the Xu Chang station to Pu Yang, where she would meet Zhang Liao. However Cao Cao's appearance meant she could multi-task as he was among the men she wanted to question. She casually made her way to the stock car, slipped over the coupling onto the other track when the railroad employee was distracted helping an elderly woman onto the train. Shang ducked down low, ran alongside the box car and leapt up onto the last car on the train. When a startled man turned to look at her, she was already inside of the car.

Cao Cao was immediately surrounded by his bodyguards who drew their guns on the woman. He looked past them and to the girl in question. She looked familiar and that usually wasn't a good thing.

"Hands in the air, Miss."

Shang raised her hands and groaned as the jacket pulled back to show her revolver. "My name is Sun Shang Xiang, I'd like a private word with Mr. Cao."

"It's alright." Cao Cao gave the word for the men to stand down and looked her over. "I assume it's about the murder."

"Yes." She growled, he sounded a bit too hopeful about the prospect of it being something else. She watched him dismiss his bodyguards and remove his trench coat to reveal an expensive blue suit that had obviously been custom made for him. He had a few streaks of grey in his hair but it somehow made him look more dignified.

"I didn't kill her, if you were simply interested in a quick answer before the train departs."

"That almost sounds like an invitation to join you." She watched him settle into a plush seat and could see how some women might be lured in by him.

"Accept it as a token of my gratitude for showing me the weakness in the deployment of my bodyguards." He waved to the seat in front of him.

Shang was thankful she didn't get kicked off, the truth was she couldn't pay for a ticket to Pu Yang and was just planning to stow a way in the stock car. "Even though I plan to interrogate you about Sable Cicada's murder?"

"The irony of her death certainly isn't lost on me." Cao Cao sat back and watched her expression to see if she knew where he was going with this. It was evident that she wasn't quite up on her literary analogies as he was. "Have you read the _Wizard of OZ_ by Baum?"

"Can't say I have." Shang wondered if he was just going to bore her to death with reciting his latest book club discussion as a punishment for her bold intrusion.

"You should, it's quite the interesting piece on many levels." He took a drink and continued. "I was referring to the character of Dorothy being symbolic of America's innocence and the Good witch of the West using her to eliminate her competition in her sisters. Do you know what the death toll was in the book, how many lives it cost for her to get to the Emerald City?"

"Death toll?" Shang put down her notebook. "Is this a trick question? You just said she was the symbol of American innocence."

"Innocence is often lost and bodies left in its wake." Cao Cao glanced up at a picture of himself and his cousins before they went to war. "The answer is 127."

"You expect me to believe that some farmer girl from Kansas went to a fantasy land and murdered over a hundred people?"

Cao Cao smiled and stood, then went to his bookcase. "I'll loan you the book."

"If I wanted to borrow a book, I'd go to the library. Instead I'm in your private train car looking for answers about a dead actress that you admittedly had relations with."

"You're your father's daughter." Cao Cao pulled the book from the shelf. "No patience and no interest in broadening your intellect."

"This isn't about me." Shang growled. "Do I need to remind you that I have a gun?"

"Just like your father." Cao Cao mumbled under his breath as he returned with the promised book. "Prove me wrong. Read it."

Shang took the book and set it on her lap as a makeshift desk for her notebook. "I should just pawn if, I'm sure it's a first edition signed copy…"

"The Emerald City was a symbol of the greenback, the glimmering hope of money at the end of a road paved in gold. Perhaps it was the perfect role for Chan, she herself was used by her father and manager Wang Yun to cause strife amongst the powerful men of this city. That, my dear, is ironic."

She looked at her notepad and stared at the empty page. "I think I'd rather hear scandalous details about your sexual exploits with her, I think it will be worth more money than publishing your book review in the paper for you."

"There is another aspect of this you might find a bit more personal. There are some that feel this is a metaphor for the political movements at the turn of the century."

"I seriously doubt that."

"It's actually quite the well-thought out metaphor…"

"I meant that I would find it interesting."

Cao Cao could recall more than one instance when he had heard the same statement from her father. "The Populist Party was formed by poor farmers who intensely despised financial institutions, railroads and societal elite."

"Oh, so they must have hated you."

He ignored her. It was just like trying to teach his own children, there were always snide remarks to try and rattle him. Unfortunately for her, he was immune to those comments and this train wasn't going to be at the next station for another half an hour. "It was short lived, however they did manage to support a man for President. William Jennings Bryan, one of the greatest speakers of the day, and he is known in the book as the Wizard of Oz."

"So who is he supposed to be in Chang An?"

"Liu Bei."

She ground her teeth and stared at him. "I'm not so naïve to think you don't know about me, considering that my father is a business rival, however I thought you better than a catty remark about…my past."

"I think the gloves were off the minute you asked me intimate details about my relationship with Chan." He shrugged. "Not so much fun when the tables are turned, now is it?"

"I did enough investigating into his past to determine I was engaged to the wrong man. I don't need you linking him to some ornate fairy tale about Witches, Actresses and a tower of Gold."

Cao Cao sighed. "Yellow brick road, not Tower. Do you always listen this well? I'm beginning to think I should highly recommend a refund to whoever hired you."

"This has nothing to do with me, so why don't we get back to my original line of questioning about the dead girl before you start telling me more nursery rhymes."

"You didn't dig far enough." Cao Cao said quietly. "You just found some ugly truth from his recent past. Perhaps you should go back further, before the war and find out what he really decided to stand up for. These Populists no longer have a political party, but the roots of dissention grow deep. Let me tell you another story."

"I want off this train."

"Then jump." Cao Cao poured her some whiskey and put the bottle back. "The Vice Presidential candidate during Bryan's Presidential bid was a man named Tom Watson. He would later use his newspaper to fire up the public and railroad a man for a murder."

"What is the moral of this story?" She asked before reaching for the drink. She felt a little uneasy about him profiling her so well, he didn't even ask if she drank.

"Do some research into the Leo Frank case in Georgia in 1913. The evidence was pitiful, but a man was simply convicted because he was a Jew. Sensationalism at it's best."

"Your point?"

"Your ex has some very poor heroes to model himself after."

"That was thirty years ago."

"I'll leave you to research it on your own. However think about how well he moves the public with his speeches, his campaign against rule by the rich and championing of the poor. Most of all, take a look at the man who is prime suspect for this murder and how little evidence there is to support that. A man the public is predisposed to hating, how easy it is to prosecute him for killing a beautiful and innocent damsel. Do some research into who has borrowed the most from Lu Bu and who would benefit the most from his execution for this crime. Lu Bu is not the monster that the public has been lead to believe. It has a ring of déjà vu, when I recall how the murder of that innocent little girl in Georgia was handled. Besides, Diao Chan is hardly an innocent, she is quite good at playing that part but her manager deserves the performance award. He's the one who pulls the strings and covers for her frequent trips south of the border for abortions."

"So why don't you expose her if you know so much? Certainly public outrage would disappear if she stops being the innocent and becomes just another dead whore."

"Death will still remain revered and nothing that comes to light now will have the impact it would have when she was alive. No, her character will remain untarnished until the endearment fades and the curiosity begins. A scandalous death has a way of creating a legend more than any accomplishment on a battlefield."

The train's whistle squelched out a blast as the engineer announced the pending arrival at the next station. Shang remained quiet, she could digest the gruesome details of a death but somehow this story about a man she once loved shook her to the core. It wasn't because she had tried to forget her feelings for him; it was because there was truth in everything Cao Cao said.

"You came here looking for a reason to suspect me. I suppose I can accommodate that now. Look to your left, you'll see the Xu Province reservoir that I helped create using the funding from a Tennessee Valley Authority grant."

"Yes, everyone knows the story. Your father was killed in a highway robbery when traveling home one night. You had been looking for a reason to run this very track thorough Xu and empowered by vengeance you found a New Deal program you could exploit. The grant money would allow you to flood the valley, create a reservoir and save Chang An by providing a water source we desperately needed. Time ran short on the project and you flooded the valley before the residents had time to evacuate. I've seen the pictures of the houses and bodies floating in the reservoir."

"Do you know what happens to a town without water? Civilizations have disappeared overnight when water sources have dried up. Ghost towns are scattered around the west, victims of ore that has dried up. Without that reservoir the water that this city demanded to grow would have been unavailable. The coal industry, steel…everyone needs water as a part of their industrial process. Yes, I needed the land this track is on, but more importantly I needed a city to be here to support this railway. I gave them 30 days to move and they refused. If I didn't complete the project by the government set date the funding would have been taken away. They made their stand and paid for it."

"You flooded an occupied town."

"Something I will pay for eventually." Cao Cao set his eyes on the lake that they were talking about. "I'll gladly pay the price if it saves this city from vanishing into the dust. War is once again on the horizon, a war that will take this country out of a horrible depression and into a new age of technology and prosperity. With the variety of industry, our dependable rail system and expansive farmland I should expect Chang An to become the boom town in the next decade."

"Don't drink the water, do you?" She asked, noticing there wasn't a single drink in his bar that wasn't imported.

"No." He answered honestly. "This is as close as I ever come since the day we opened the dam."

She watched the scenery pass as the train began to slow approaching its next stop, Pu Yang.

"I'll leave you with a little history lesson. Back in the early 1800's St. Louis was also in danger of becoming a ghost town. The city was a harbor on the Mississippi, but the river was beginning to take a new path away from the town. To save the city, the Army Corp of Engineers rerouted the river. Do you know who was responsible for that achievement?"

"No."

"A young Lieutenant, by the name of Robert E. Lee. Of course that victory would be overshadowed by his career later in life, but in more ways than one he helped make this country what it is today."

"He's still one of the most revered Generals in the history of this country."

"How envious I am of him. That even now people can forgive his mistakes, like at Gettysburg, and still see him as a hero."

"I hardly think you're on the same playing field."

"I hope that the atrocities….aren't all that is recorded under my name. I do hope that history won't erase my achievements in order to highlight the black marks in my career. I certainly have played the part of the villain, but I've had moments where I have tried to be a hero."

"A hero _of chaos_." She muttered sarcastically.

He turned and smiled at her, seeing it as a compliment. "It has been a pleasure, Miss Sun. Good luck with your investigation."

* * *

Shang dusted off her trousers as she walked toward the train station after getting off the train. She looked at herself in the window and tried to ensure her hair was still looking decent. That conversation with Cao Cao did little to rule out suspects and simply muddied the waters more. The last time she had gone looking for answers about Liu Bei she ended up with with a broken heart, an estranged father and a new career.

"I hope you haven't changed your mind." Zhang Liao said as he found her on the platform scrutinizing herself in the window.

She looked at him as he leaned against the window next to her with a charming smile on his handsome face. Perhaps the discussion with Cao Cao did provide her with something, even if it was just a reminder that romance was simply a fantasy like the land of Oz. She had to keep reminding herself of that, especially when in the company of a man like Liao. "No, just trying to make sense of a conversation I just had."

"For a girl who insists that I pick her up at the train station, you certainly did arrive in style." Liao watched the train pull away from the station and wondered how she managed to get an audience with Cao Cao on his private car.

"I'm very thorough. I don't like to waste time." She responded.

"I appreciate that." He held out his arm for her, trying to be the gentleman and hoping to not offend her.

She took the offered arm and walked with him into the station. It was going to be hard to keep things professional with him, especially with his overwhelming charisma. Perhaps she would be lucky again and Xun would stubble upon his demons while doing a background check. "What is your take on the stories about the Xu Reservoir?"

"Stories?" Liao shook his head. "There is only the truth; hundreds of people are still at the bottom of that lake with all their earthly belongings. If the government was as interested in saving lives as they were in destroying booze, I think things would have been different. However, I suppose you can ask the people of Xia Pi when we get there. They're the ones who survived. These people had nothing, lost everything and are forgotten by the people of Chang An."

"If you have nothing, how can you lose everything?" She asked curiously as he walked with her down the stairs ad to his waiting car.

"You'll see."

* * *

"These are the pictures of what used to be where the Lake is." Liao pointed to the photos on the wall. "They are all that remains."

She looked at the people, the buildings and a picture of the volunteer firemen.

Liao took off his coat and hat and threw it on the hat rack. He adjusted his suspenders and loosened his tie. "The real end to the town of Xu came years before the water submerged it. The obituary reads just like any other old western ghost town. Coal was found, a town sprang up and people flooded in. As the ore became harder to find people began to leave, some opted to stay. One man lost his mind and went on a killing spree, shot everyone in the hotel before he was killed in the street by the Sheriff. Just about any reason to live here was gone after that, but a few families stayed to try and use the land to farm. It would have faded into oblivion had Cao Cao not decided he needed it as a water supply for his railway. Suddenly people flooded in, holding land titles that they thought were worth something. It was a huge scam, but worth the effort to get even a penny for the property."

Shang looked at the picture of the hotel and a man in a pine box displayed outside. It was from 1925, not 1885. It was hard to believe that things like this happened here, not the old west. In her lifetime, no less!

"Anyhow, the county had already assessed the property to be worthless. They seized it for back taxes and sold it for next to nothing to the government. Those fools that flooded the valley had dreams of striking it rich, not by mining, but by simply being in the right place at the right time. Who knows who sold them on the scam, but they believed in it. Enough to think they could wait for the press to sensationalize the issue and pay them their due."

"Is this one of the titles?" Shang asked as she noticed a water damaged piece of paper framed on the wall.

"Yes. Lu Bu and I fished that out of the water after the town floated to the top."

"It's evidence." She said emphatically.

"Of what? Stuipdity? Gullibility?" Liao sat down at the desk and began to pull out files. "If you ask me that town was damned. The fact that it wouldn't stay buried under the water is a testament to that."

"Those people died because someone sold them on an idea that they were entitled to a profit from that land sale."

"They were desperate for a glimmer of hope." Liao said sadly. "After starving and living out of the trash they desperately clung to the idea that they could have something. Like I said, they had nothing in those scraps of paper and lost everything because of it."

"What exactly is it that you do?" She said incredulously. She knew that a man like him could easily have sat in that railcar with Cao Cao and intelligently bantered with him no matter what cultural or historical reference he chose to dwell on. "Town historian? Tour guide?"

He smiled at her, wishing he could provide her with that simple answer. However, some truths were best to be discovered. "You're standing in Xia Pi's city hall. This little town is separated from Chang An by the reservoir and as you can attest to, the roads here are not maintained or even traveled. When the dam was flooded, one of the rivers was diverted through this town. When the waters subsided, the town still remained. Without money, they scavenged below the dam for materials to repair and rebuild. Xiao Pi and Xu are now very much the same. Families relocated here and once again a town sprang to life. This time without the economic boom that created them originally."

"So, Mr. Mayor, exactly what is it that this town has other than broken promises and ghosts?" She spun around and put her hand on her revolver as the door was swung open and a huge man pointed his pistol at her.

"We have, Lu Bu." Liao said and rolled his eyes. "Who needs to stop being so dramatic with his entrances."

"Save your jokes, Liao. Do you know who she is? Do you?"

"Yes. I hired her."

"Oh." Lu Bu said quietly. "I didn't realize she was…"

"A private eye." Liao finished the sentence before his best friend could ruin the only hope for clearing his name.

"Oh…" Lu Bu put away his pistol and chuckled. "I get it. She's 'investigating' your privates. Funny."

Shang pulled out her revolver. "Give me one reason not to put a 45 in your head!"

Liao closed his eyes and groaned. "I'm serious, Fengxian. I hired her to investigate Chan's death."

"Oh." He gave her an apologetic smile. "Sorry."

"To answer your earlier question, I do know who she is. That is why I hired her. Who else is going to be able to get answers out of Sun Jian's employees?" Liao frowned when he realized Shang had yet to put her weapon away. "It should go without saying that you don't get paid if you kill the client."

"You're my client. He is the bastard who called me a whore!"

"You two make a cute couple." Lu Bu said with a smile and sat down on the sofa by the wall unaffected by the girl pointing a gun at him.

Shang reluctantly put her weapon away. "Perhaps you can answer a question for me."

"Shoot." Lu Bu said and realized it was a poor choice of words at the moment. He gave her an innocent smile.

"What is it that you do?" She watched him shuffle uncomfortably on the Victorian era sofa with water stained velvet. He was nothing like the papers made him seem, this was a man who just struck her as being honest. She noticed a ladies handkerchief in his pocket and wondered if she could get her hands on it. Her assumption was that it was Diao Chan's, but she wanted to know for sure. A murderer didn't usually keep mementos of the dead so close to his heart. She sniffed the air and detected a hint of perfume, expensive imported perfume. No, this was a man desperately clinging to the smell and touch of a woman who was no longer of this world. Serial killers took trophies for their private collection; Lu Bu was literally keeping her close to his heart. She felt bad for him; the woman he loved was probably just using him. He startled her when he answered her question.

"I think the official name for it is 'protection racketeering' however I prefer the more romantic version. We rob from the rich and give to the poor."

"You expect me to believe that you're Robin Hood and this is Sherwood Forest?" She asked skeptically and looked at Zhang Liao to see the look on his face. "So that makes you Little John?"

"I guess you haven't slept with her yet then." Lu Bu chuckled. "Unless she has some outrageous standards."

Liao threw a paperweight at him. "You're not being very endearing. Your life is on the line here, Fengxian."

"My life's over, no matter what you do." Lu Bu toyed with the paperweight and looked at his chest pocket. He took a deep breath before continuing. "I want whoever did this to pay. How good are you at your job, Miss Sun?"

"Damned good." She replied.

"Then when you find who did this you tell me…"

"So you can earn your execution?" Liao slammed his hand on the desk. "No! We do this the right way!"

"Really? The cops are crooked; the Feds are corrupt…who is going to do the right thing? They've got an excuse to railroad me right to the gallows and any truth they find is going to just get in the way. Who would believe the truth anyway? The papers all but have me convicted."

Shang bit her lip. It had a familiarity to it, something like the little fairy tale Cao Cao had spun on the train.

"I need you to stop acting like you're guilty. It's not helping." Liao growled.

"I'm afraid that they'll destroy the truth and whoever did this will get away. You need to act fast if you're going to get to it before them." Lu Bu said sincerely.

"Who is 'them'?" She asked.

Lu Bu shrugged and pulled the handkerchief from his pocket. "I wish I knew."

Shang's eyes darted to the embroidered letters on the silk, 'S.C'. Diao Chan's stage name, Sable Cicada. She wondered what kind of woman would give her fiancé some handout from a publicity stunt. Perhaps he preferred to love the innocent girl that she portrayed instead of the femme fatale that Cao Cao hinted she was. The more she learned about her the more she wondered if she should thank her murderer when she found him. "Will you answer my questions, Mr. Lu?"

"Of course." He said without hesitation. "As long as you promise you'll find who killed her."

"We need to find you a lawyer." Liao grumbled.

"Are you prepared for the truth?" She asked. "Sometimes the truth hurts more than anything."

Liao looked up at her face as her features softened momentarily while the two locked eyes and shared some moment of understanding. It was a painful expression, one of betrayal. As quickly as he saw it, it was gone. Apparently he was going to have to find someone to investigate his private eye. He needed to know more about her if he was going to allow her near his vulnerable best friend.

"Yeah." He put the handkerchief to his nose and took a deep breathe before pulling it away to look at it again. "I want to know. I don't want to be surprised when my life flashes in front of my eyes and it's too late to do anything about it.


	2. The Femme Fatale

_Murder of Sable Cicada_

Chapter 2

**The Femme Fatale**

**

* * *

**

_May 3, 1939 Lu Bu Questioned in Murder Case_

Shang looked at today's headline on the newspaper that was on the passenger seat of the old Model T pickup truck. She put her notepad and the borrowed novel down on the seat and picked up the paper to see what it said as Lu Bu jumped in the driver's seat.

"It must be my horoscope." He said and pointed to the headline. "I guess I should have placed some bets at the track on my lucky numbers."

Shang looked to her left as Zhang Liao stepped on a dented bumper and hoisted himself into the truck bed filled with hay. "Hopefully mine isn't about a car crash."

Liao sat down in the hay and leaned his arm on the side of the bed. "That would be what happens when you teach your girlfriend how to drive without first telling her where reverse is."

Lu Bu chuckled. "Chan wanted me to show her how to drive so I brought her up here and tried to teach her. She was excited, like a kid at Christmas. Then she put it in reverse, pressed the accelerator to the floor and took out the windmill."

Shang looked over at a toppled windmill near a barn when Lu Bu pointed to illustrate the consequences of his actions.

"We should at least replace the tail light before someone arrests you for operating an unsafe vehicle." Liao rested his head on the back of the cab.

Shang got in the truck, satisfied that her chances at survival were a little better. The small cab was mostly taken up by Lu Bu's rather large form, so she put her book and notepad on her lap. "So what did you tell them?"

"The police?" Lu Bu shifted into first and began to creep down the rutted road towards the main town. "Not much. There was a lot of shouting on their part and pointing out that I was covered in her blood. Not really much to tell. I came out of the theatre and saw her there…dead. Her eyes still open and a look of shock on her face. She was still warm when I picked her up. I still don't believe she's gone. I guess I left that paper there to remind myself this isn't just a nightmare."

Shang decided she really didn't need to upset him more and opted to start questioning him about the woman he loved.

"Tell me about Diao Chan. Was she different than the Sable Cicada that the public knew?"

"Yeah, Cicada was the image her father wanted the studios to see. He was always snapping at her when she slipped out of character."

"About her father…"

"If anyone should be dead, it should be him." Lu Bu gripped the wheel and ground his teeth. "She loved him though; he saved her from the streets."

"So Chan was an orphan?"

"Yeah." Lu Bu shook his head. "He didn't take her off the streets to save her from starving; he picked her up so he could sell her to Dong Zhuo."

"Sell her?"

"One of Dong Zhuo's many businesses was sex slave trafficking. Kids, kidnapped women…sick son of a bitch."

"But you worked for him."

"I also killed him for it."

"Fengxian…." Liao thumped his head on the window.

"I don't care who knows it. I worked for him as hired muscle. I came back from the war and had no real prospects lined up. He heard I was pretty good at killing Krauts so he gave me a job as a bodyguard. During his reign of terror here in Chang An, I was by his side and got to learn the racketeering trade from the master."

"What about the prostitution ring?"

"Guess I was too busy to really care or maybe I just didn't want to see it. Not until he rewarded me with a night in his Forbidden City and I saw it all. Maybe that's why someone wants me dead, I saw too much."

"What do you mean?" Shang jotted down some notes. She heard tales of the old Forbidden City Brothel that used to operate out of the old Opera House. Her brothers had snuck in one time and said the place was a treasure trove. Now it was probably a home for bums, just like every other boarded up building in the city.

"A lot of women you might recognize came from there. Cao Cao's wife was one of his best whores. Those Qiao girls that work for your father. Cai Wengi, the lady who sings the Blues. Chan…was just a little girl." Lu Bu's jaw clenched. "I should have killed him with my bare hands but…we wanted to make it look like a mob related killing. So we drove him out to the country and shot up his car with a Tommy Gun."

"We?" Shang asked and heard the tell-tale thump of Liao's admission on the cab window.

"Cao Cao tried to kill him one night after he ruffed up Lady Bian for getting pregnant. I had Cao Cao in my sites that night as he left the brothel dragging his woman behind him. I think that's the first time I ever felt my palms sweat as I held my old Springfield, even after all those guys I killed with it. Well, it was also the first time I ever missed. Anyhow, back in '28 when the Feds came to shut him down he wanted us to get him out of town to one of his hideouts near Luo Yang. That's when we did it. Liao was his driver and I was his chief bodyguard. It was easy to take him out."

"Fengxian…." Liao moaned from the truck bed. He took a deep breathe and reminded himself why he hired Sun Shang Xiang. She certainly knew some dirty little secrets about Sun Jian that could cost him dearly, those secrets never got out though. Hopefully she took client confidentiality that seriously as well.

"Robin Hood, huh?" She said with an understanding smile. "One thing doesn't add up though."

"What's that?"

"You don't look old enough to have fought in the Great War."

"I was a big kid." He said with a sly smile. "I was actually 16 when I enlisted but I guess I looked a lot older. It's funny, Chan found my picture from the war and swore she remembered me from the parade when we came home."

"I remember that parade too." Shang said with a smile. She was just a little girl, but remembered her father breaking rank to come over and pick her up from her mother's arms and carry her the rest of the way down Main Street. She couldn't have been more than three years old. Her eyes glanced down at her notes. Diao Chan wasn't supposed to be alive yet, so how could she remember that? Either she was lying to entice Lu Bu, or she was lying about her age. Or both.

"She said something about it to her father and that was the last time she ever talked about that." Lu Bu recalled sadly.

"So Cao Cao stole his wife from a brothel?" Shang changed the subject. She had to make a note of that for the next time he wanted to play historical trivia games.

"You'd be amazed at some of the secrets this town keeps." Lu Bu brought the pickup to a stop next to an old barn and jumped out. "Come meet the next Triple Crown winner."

"What?" Shang asked and looked up as a blood bay horse came running up to the fence.

"This is my racehorse, Red Hare. He's only two, but he's already clocking better times than any of those horses Ma Teng runs at his track." Lu Bu went over to pet his horse.

Shang looked behind her as Liao jumped out of the back of the truck and began tossing hay to the horse. "Little John the stable boy, no wonder you didn't want to tell me what you did for a living."

"It's something to occupy my time when I'm not showing tourists around or seeing to my Mayoral duties." Liao gave her a wink and continued to toss hay to Lu Bu's pet racehorse.

"You two _really_ make a cute couple." Lu Bu chuckled. "Promise you'll name one of your kids after me."

Shang chuckled as Liao hit him with a pitchfork full of hay. She got out of the truck and looked at the reservoir below them on the hill. There was something about that wet piece of paper on the wall that bothered her. "What bank held the notices on the land down there?"

"Yuan Shao's." Liao responded.

"Fantastic. The one guy I have no idea how to get close to."

"Oh, I can help." Lu Bu rubbed Red Hare's cheeks and blew air up his nose to fluster him. "He's having some kind of pretentious ball up at his mansion this weekend. I was supposed to take Chan, but under the circumstances I just don't think I'm up to going. I already bought tickets, she wanted to go."

"A ball? For what?" Shang asked and frowned as Liao shot Lu Bu a glare that seemed out of place.

"Fund raising effort for the soup kitchens." Lu Bu turned to her and smiled. "Liao can be your date. He's got a nice tux, looks better in those ass-flaps than I do."

"Fengxian…" Liao hissed.

"I'm sorry, tuxedo tails." Lu Bu gave him a wink.

Shang wondered if this was some transparent plan to set her up with his best friend. "Sorry, I don't exactly have a ball gown in my closet."

"You can use Chan's." Lu Bu said matter of factly. "I bought it for her for this very event. She was eyeing it in the fashion magazine so I had a seamstress order it for her."

"We're not exactly the same body type." Shang mumbled, not wanting to broadcast the obvious fact that she was nowhere near the delicate flower Chan was.

"That's what a seamstress is for. Stop by Sun Ren Er's shop in Chang An and have her put it on my tab." Lu Bu smiled. "No excuses now, Miss Sun, just say yes."

"I…" She looked at Liao who gave her a polite smile, perhaps embarrassed by this matchmaking effort.

"Come on, you said you need to talk to him in order to work my case. Well, how easy will this be? Just about everyone will be there." He hesitated. "Or can't you dance?"

"I'm a rich man's daughter; of course I had to endure dance lessons."

"Great!" Lu Bu's smile broadened. "It's a date then!"

Shang looked out at the lake again, thinking about the prospect of showing up to a high class ball on the arm of a Gangster. It would be well worth seeing the look on her old friend's faces. Priceless to see Zhang Liao in a tux! Then she saw a glimmer on the water and squinted to see what it was. "Is that a plane out there?"

"Yeah, Cao Cao's sea plane. He's got a storehouse and pier over there with a sidetrack from the main train lines." Lu Bu informed her.

"Interesting." She said. A nice side benefit to flooding the lake. She just couldn't shake the feeling that somehow this was all connected.

* * *

Lu Meng glanced up at her over his glasses and shook his head. He continued to peck away at typewriter. "Here we go again…."

Shang shrugged her coat off and threw it on the couch that looked infinitely more comfortable than her own. She tossed her hat on top of it and then Cao Cao's book and her notepad landed with an unceremonious thump. Confortable, she turned to her old college professor with a sweet smile and announced, "It's about the Diao Chan murder…"

"Didn't get any answers from that embarrassing spectacle of sensationalist journalism in the paper?" Meng asked and ran his tongue over his lips as he tried to unfold the ink ribbon on his typewriter.

"Not exactly."

Lu Meng kept his eyes on the typewriter as he accidentally got a few keys to stick together immediately after adjusting the ribbon. Hand carving stone had to be more efficient than this. He reached for his drink to help ease his frustrations. "I think you should wait to read my findings in the paper."

"Were you able to get into the Imperial Seal?" She asked and leaned over his desk to get his attention.

Meng looked up and slammed his glass down on the desk. "Button up your shirt for God's sakes! I'm your teacher not some easily manipulated fool at your father's bar."

She straightened up and did as he asked. "Better, Professor Lu?"

"What's that, a book?" Meng asked noticing what she had thrown on the couch along with her precious notepad. "Really?"

"Cao Cao loaned it to me." She replied as he looked at her skeptically. "No really, he loaned it to me after lecturing me about allegories and the _Wizard of Oz_."

"Where the hell have you been?" Meng sat back in his chair. "Please tell me you're not in over your head."

"He might be struggling with his own mortality. He started talking about people only remembering his atrocities and not his good deeds." She leaned over and grabbed the book and tossed it on Meng's desk.

"Mmm…like Alfred Nobel." Meng added his own lesson. "Read his obituary in the paper declaring the 'merchant of death is dead' and it mortified him that it was his legacy. It was his brother's obit and they made a mistake, but it made him change his will and leave his fortune to establish the Nobel Prize. Maybe Cao Cao's dying. We heard rumors of a brain tumor…"

"You really should join his book club." Shang sat down in a wobbly wooden chair as Meng inspected the book. "You two would hit it off."

"You didn't steal this, did you?" Meng queried as he noticed the label on the inside identifying it as Cao Cao's property.

"No, I was questioning him and he just kept going on tangent after tangent." She looked at her old college professor and frowned. "Quit calling me a thief!"

"It's because you never pay me."

"I pay you with information." She said and leaned forward popping the top button on her blouse off.

"Who exactly are you investigating?" Meng asked, ingnoring the button that just shot across the room.

"I've been hired to find out who killed her. Let's leave it at that." She looked down and let her shoulders slump. There went another shirt.

"Well the papers say the prime suspect is Lu Bu." Meng sighed. Being a freelance reporter he preferred to search for the real story, not just publish gossip. "However I don't think there is any evidence that points to him. The fact is that there is very little evidence and just about everyone is a suspect."

"There's a surprise; Police and press contributing to the problem."

"Something's going on, or else the Feds wouldn't be involved. A familiar face at that. " Meng snorted. "That ATF revenue agent who saved Liu Bei's son at Chang Ban, Zhao Yun. Apparently the kid found a more exciting job when prohibition ended and started working for J. Edgar Hoover. Don't know how much better that is."

"Either that or he's back to take credit for _my_ detective work again." She sat back in the chair carefully. "What about the police?"

"What about them?" Meng shrugged. "I'm sure they're planting evidence as we speak. Lu Bu's execution would be a huge feather in the District Attorney's cap."

"Was she really the vamp the rumors say she was?"

"Not really my style of reporting." Meng responded. "You should ask the medical examiner. He should be able to tell you some details since you two are old friends."

"I can't crucify her for contracting some venereal disease at some point in her career." Shang said thoughtfully. "However I do think I'd like to hear what he has to say."

"Take notes, good notes." Meng waved his finger at her. "I can't use hearsay."

"Give me something Meng, please. I feel like I'm crossing the Atlantic in a bathtub." Shang reached for her book and turned to fetch her jacket, notebook and hat.

"Be careful, kid." Meng cautioned. "One girl is already dead. I don't want to have to write your obituary."

"I need a list of suspects." She looked over her shoulder at him. "I don't think I can handle another one of Cao Cao's lectures."

"I'll see what I can dig up at work. I'll see you tomorrow." Meng gave her a smile and returned to his article. "Don't believe anything Cao Cao tells you either. Don't put it past him to use you to achieve some other goal of his."

"Find my button!" She called back as she shut the door and prepared for another long walk across town to the coroner's office.

* * *

"What happened to the creepy old guy who used to work with you?" Shang asked as she sat on the empty metal slab in the county morgue. She yawned. It had been a long day and she still wasn't done yet. The quick stop at the seamstress's house after she visited Professor Lu made her all too aware of how badly she was in need of a bath. However, night was falling which meant the doors of the Imperial Seal Casino were going to be opening soon. Just one more stop, then home. To that damned couch.

Pang Tong put his mask on and turned to her. "Zuo Ci? I had to fire him."

"Why? Was he touching the bodies?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Don't sound so pleased to have a sixth sense that detects necrophiliacs." Tong put his apron on. "Should have known better than to bet against Sun Jian's daughter. Gambling is in your blood."

"Did you catch him doing something?" She asked curiously.

"No…I actually fired him this morning after Sable Cicada's death mask showed up on the black market." Tong shook his head. "That poor girl's body was barely cold and he's in here doing god knows what."

"Maybe that's the way he likes 'em." Shang suggested. "Lukewarm."

"With an extra hole in her chest?" Tong raised his eyebrows in his Groucho Marx impersonation.

Shang began to chuckle and jumped off the slab to go inspect the clothes bin in the corner. The city was cremating bodies of the people who couldn't afford a burial and as a disturbingly charitable effort was donating their clothes to the poor. She wasn't going to be able to show up to her father's high class casino wearing a shirt that was literally falling apart at the seams. "Not a lot of dead women today huh?"

"Nope. Just some old lady who died on the train today." Tong replied.

Shang frowned as she recalled the old woman who she had used as a diversion earlier this morning. "Wasn't the morning train to Pu Yang, was it?"

"Yeah." Tong watched her pull the frilly shirt from the bin. "Friend of yours?"

"She is now."

"You're one hell of a woman, you know that?" Tong went back to his 'Y' incision.

Shang made her way over to his office and closed the door enough to obscure the view, but not end the conversation. She looked at the blouse that had to be something left over from the last century. It was what her budget allowed so she began to strip off her old shirt. "Anything you can tell me about Diao Chan's murder?"

"You mean, can I compromise the ongoing police investigation by leaking information to you?"

"I prefer to ask if you want this crime solved."

"The findings are on my desk." Tong looked over his shoulder at the shadow of her in the frosted glass of his office door. "Kiddo, this isn't some nobody who got mugged. This girl was in the spotlight. Are you sure you want to get involved?"

"Oh, I'm already in way over my head." She looked down at herself. At least she was going somewhere where everyone knew better than to make fun of her clothes. "So who are you making copies for?"

"Mr. Personality himself, Zhao Yun. No wonder that guy is still single, the stiff here has more going for him."

"Great." Shang grumbled and went over to the desk to sort through his notes.

"Do you want the abridged version?" Tong queried.

"I want to know how old she really was."

"Mid 20s." Tong began fishing through his corpse for the bullet fragments.

"Was she a child prostitute?"

"I can tell you she wasn't a virgin. Can't tell you when that happened though." Tong dropped the bullet fragments in the pan. "Nothing really out of the ordinary in her death. Shot in the heart at close range, she was probably dead before she hit the floor."

"Was the bullet recovered?"

"Lodged in her ribcage."

"45 caliber." Shang frowned as she flipped through the report. Lu Bu had a Colt 1911 in 45 ACP, then again, so did most of America.

"Yup." Tong looked up as she emerged from the office holding the folder with his report. "You're not seriously going to go out in public in that shirt are you? I think that style went out somewhere around the time of the Lincoln assassination."

She ignored him. "Did Zhao Yun say what his interest was in this case?"

"Yes, he cackled maniacally and said he was going to steal your glory again, then use his fame to rule the world. Muhahahaha."

"Do I get to be tied to the train tracks and have you rescue me on a white horse?"

"Only to remove my mask and die from fright." He waved his scalpel at her. "Be careful around train tracks, they were very unlucky for the last owner of that shirt!"

"I've had enough fun on the train today. I think I might just make my way over to see what my Father is up to."

"Well at least none of his bouncers will want to touch you with that shirt on. Might help you get through the door."

She made a few notes on her notepad and recalled a day five years earlier when she had been here asking questions about Liu Bei's first wife. She needed a medical professional to explain to her how a woman could drown in an inferno. She expected him to kick her out, like everyone else did, but he had welcomed her warmly. Apparently less and less people were interested in the truth and he was growing frustrated with the justice system. Lots of bodies, few convictions. She found a good friend in Pang Tong and a colleague. He would send information and work her way when families wanted answers. It was thanks to him she never went crawling back home or died in the gutter. "Do you think Lu Bu did it?"

"Dunno, I understand the dead a bit better than the living." He shook the tray with the bullet in it at her.

"Thanks Shiyuan!" She made sure she had everything and gave him a peck on the cheek

* * *

"You better not be undressing me with your eyes." Shang stared back at Zhou Yu as he welcomed her with a stoic stare.

He looked at the god awful shirt she was wearing and wondered how anyone could make it past that. "Are you looking for free drinks, free food or information about the murder of Sable Cicada?"

"All of the above."

"Then leave quietly before I have Huang Gai escort you to the curb." He then added, "Before you scare off any customers with that shirt."

"What's wrong, Gongjin? Is Sima Yi back spoiling the House odds again?" She asked seeing the young millionaire alone at his high roller table.

"Don't make me tell you again…."  
"Hey sis!" Sun Ce waved from the bar. "Pull up a stool!"

"Oh…looks like I'm with him."

"Your ass leaves that stool and it will be kicked to the curb." Zhou Yu snapped. "Zhou Tai, watch her."

"Hmmm." Zhou Tai gave her a welcoming smile as Zhou Yu stormed off to try and catch Sima Yi cheating again.

Shang rolled her eyes and walked over to the bar as her brother mixed her a drink. "So anyone confess yet?"

"Just Gan Ning." Ce replied. "Said something about 'firing off a load into some broad' but the cops found out the hard way that he was talking about something else."

"No more virgin ears, huh?"

"I think they all went to confession after hearing it." Ce chuckled. "What are you up to?"

"Starving."

"Come home Sunny." Ce reached over for her hand and squeezed it. "Come on Sis, haven't you been pissed at Pop long enough?"

"No." She pulled her hand back and took the drink. "He arranged a marriage with a man who abandoned his family to die when the Feds raided. All for what? So he could stock this bar?"

"Speaking of, that guy was here. What the hell was his name…"

"Zhao Yun."

"Yeah. He's an FBI agent now."

"Good for him."

"Yeah, I guess he got a promotion for saving babies and cracking that Gongsun bonfire case."

"I bet he did." Shang slid the empty glass back to her brother. "Never mind that it was _my_ work that cracked the case."

"Maybe you should let him have the credit. I mean it can't be good for business if you brag about hunting someone down only to have them off their family and commit suicide. At least not for a girl."

"Yeah." Shang leaned back and looked at the family bodyguard, Zhou Tai. "Mind if I go bother Sima Yi for a little while?"

Tai shrugged. "That might just earn me employee of the month."

She grinned at him and admired how pinstripes seemed to make him all the more imposing. Not that the scarred face didn't earn him some respect, but her eyes liked to take in the whole package. She slipped off the barstool, grabbed her refreshed drink from her brother and strolled over to the casino floor. Sima Yi was alone at the high roller table being attended to by one of her father's best dealers, Ling Tong. Without asking for an invitation she sat down next to the oil mogul and set her drink down on the table.

Ling Tong frowned as he looked up at the boss's daughter, and then reached for a coaster to set the drink on. "Little over your head, aren't you Miss Sun?"

Sima Yi took a long drag on his cigarette and admired the woman beside him. He was always partial to redheads and this one was no exception. "I was wondering when you'd get around to questioning me."

"You sound like you were looking forward to it." She locked eyes with him as he set his elbow on the table and rested his head against his hand. The lit cigarette in his hand enshrouded his head in a brief cloud of smoke, but he blew the smoke from his view and she could clearly see his face. Dark eyes, a young face and long brown hair draped over a white collared shirt.

"After hearing you interrogated Cao Cao alone in his private railcar, I have to say I'd be a fool to send you away."

She pursed her lips; his voice was all that he needed to add a twinge of innuendo to that statement. "Tong, why don't you take a break?"

Ling Tong wasn't going to refuse a break that could possibly foil Sima Yi's winning streak. He set the cards down on the table and bowed out. "Sure."

"So what is my motive for killing that girl?" Yi reached out for the cards and sat back up, putting the cigarette back in his mouth to deal a hand for the young woman beside him.

She took the cards and shrugged. "I don't have the slightest idea."

He chuckled. "Honesty. What a novel concept for your family. No wonder you don't get along with the old man."

"Why exactly is it that you spend all your time here? You've made a fortune in oil, I can't imagine that you need the money."

"Of course not." He looked up and waved to Zhou Yu at the bar. "It's a game, meant to keep my mental skills sharp and quite frankly pissing him off is a major reason."

"Don't like being called a cheater?"

"Did the slander lawsuits key you into that, detective?"

"He's never been able to catch you at it, but I don't understand why you wouldn't just find somewhere else to play."

"Keeps me on my toes, I can't make any mistakes when a man like him is watching my every move. Poker is a simple game; I like to spice it up a bit and add another dimension."

"Are you trying to bankrupt the casino in order to enact your revenge?"

"For a meager slap in the face?" Sima Yi cackled. "No, I play to aggravate him and my winnings are simply the punitive damages I feel I didn't receive in court. I don't want a damned casino; I'm not a people person."

"Sable Cicada's death would drive away customers…"

"Only because the blood stain on the carpet probably contains various contagious diseases. The health hazard alone should be enough to shut this place down." Yi tapped his cigarette in the tray and turned to look at her. "You don't know where to start looking, do you?"

"No." She replied and reached for her drink. "I believe in being thorough and I believe that everyone might just have a piece of the puzzle. Only the killer can see the whole picture; however I need to take these little bits of information and put it together to see him. It's like a broken two way mirror. So, I really don't suspect you but I think that you might know something that could shine some light on an otherwise dark room."

"Well you survived a chat with Cao Cao without putting your gun in your mouth to save you from the history lesson. That geriatric pervert loves to drone on about history and literature…did you learn anything?"

"Actually, yes."

"You must be good at what you do then." Yi said admirably. "So what question do you want answered? Who killed the girl, who wants to frame Lu Bu or who wants to shut your father down?"

"Where ever the yellow brick road takes me, I suppose." She watched his expression turn from business to amusement.

"You had to endure that too, hmmm? That tired old allegory about the evil Populists and L. Frank Baum's fairy tale."

"He made me think I should demand a refund from Sun Tzu University for lack of a higher education."

"He's getting old." Sima Yi lamented. "However he's still a real son on of a bitch to deal with when it comes to business."

"Why do you have any dealings with him? Lubricants for his trains?"

"Fuel for his aviation division." Sima Yi blew smoke in the air. "So he can fly armaments to Europe to fight the Krauts again. He and his cousins are all veterans of the Great War, you should ask him about that next time you see him."

"I know his cousin Xiahou Dun is a war hero, lost his eye in a dogfight."

"Well he's gone from bi-planes to trans-Atlantic contraband deliveries. He's quite the character, I'm sure you'll enjoy talking with him. Better hurry, I'm sure he's already enlisted for the next war."

"Is there any reason he would want her dead?"

"Xiahou Dun? Doubtful. She helped dedicate that war memorial monument in the town square and couldn't resist a man in uniform." Yi shrugged. "He's got a temper but I don't really see him being an infatuated fan."

"What about you? Did you sleep with her?"

"Nope." Yi put out the cigarette and reached for a new one. "I like redheads."

"Who would want to shut down this casino?"

"Who wouldn't? Your father has a long list of enemies stringing back to before the war. He even has motive to kill Sable in his own casino."

"My father?"

"Back in the 20's when Dong Zhuo was boss Lu Bu was his right hand man. Jian always thought himself better than that gangster, but Lu Bu was quite effective in damaging a lot of his bootleg shipments. Might have been a convenient way to get revenge, we both know your Daddy doesn't forget anything."

"Who is my father's competition now? With all of the successful men getting richer and going more global, my father is still just local. You, Cao Cao, Yuan Shao…you're all bigger than Chang An."

"Yuan Shao." Sima Yi snorted. "Yuan Shao is old money, he still thinks of himself as a Victorian aristocrat with his ridiculous top hat and monocle."

"His family used to control the banks." She wanted to ask about Xu dam but something Lu Meng said was irking her. Cao Cao's motives for that admission were still unclear. Was he capable of being honest or was he simply trying to rile her up about Liu Bei? No, she'd leave that set of questions for someone else. If Sima Yi thought poker was child's play than she really needed to be careful what she said around him.

"Yet he's still rich even after the stock market crash and the run on the banks. Funny how his banks closed and the depositors lost everything but he managed to survive with flying colors."

"What about his coal operations?"

"Coal, my dear, is the past. Steel the present and oil the future. Write that down on that napkin and keep it for your grandkids. You'll see I'm right."

"Who would want this casino shut down?"

"You should ask your father." Sima Yi nodded as he saw the furious Sun patriarch storm onto the Casino floor. "Do you like horse racing?"

"What?"

"You should take a day, relax and go bet on the ponies at Liang Downs. The Ma family is getting ready to open a new clubhouse."

She watched that sly smile touch his lips as she was yanked out of her seat by her father's hand.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Sun Jian growled as he dragged her through the bar and pushed her into the kitchen. "Don't I have enough problems without you chasing off my only customer?"

"He's winning more than losing, you should be thanking me." Shang put her hands on her hips as she saw her brother making his way through his kitchen staff to assist.

Sun Quan tossed his chef hat onto the counter and rushed to the rescue. "Father…"

"Who hired you?" Jian demanded.

"That's confidential."

"You're not the police, you're not a customer and you're not an employee…so that makes you a trespasser."

"Oh how trite." She rolled her eyes. "I'm trying to help solve a crime that has come close to ruining your business. The fact that you're hindering the investigation makes me wonder what you're hiding!"

"Sunny…" Quan cautioned.

"Get out." Jian growled.

"Don't want to take this opportunity to clear your name?"

Jian chuckled. "I already have, to both the Police and the FBI. I owe you nothing."

"I'll see myself out." Shang snapped as Huang Gai materialized to assist her father. She wasn't about to let anyone have the satisfaction of throwing her out on the curb! She threw open the doors and marched out through the bar, waving to her brother Ce as she made a line for the front door.

Zhou Yu held the front door for her and she didn't pause to say anything. He let the door shut behind her, stuck his hands in his pockets and went back to watching Sima Yi play solitaire at the high roller table.

Shang looked out upon the dreary street as the cars past and people huddled around a fire in a trash can. She turned up the collar on her jacket and walked around the side of the building where more people were standing hoping to get their hands on some trash the casino was going to toss out. The Casino's garbage was treasure to these people; linens, food scraps or even floor sweepings that might hide some treasure that could be pawned. She pushed pass them and knocked on the door to the stage.

A slot opened and a pair of eyes looked at her. "Sunny?"

"I want to talk with you about your floor show."

The door opened and Taishi Ci looked at the young girl who used to go to the movies with him and her brother. He chewed on his cigar as she slipped past him and into the building. "I like the look. Did you pull that shirt off a dead old lady?"

"Yes, I did." She said and started to climb the stars to the production office. "She wasn't going to need it where she was going."

"That's gross." Ci made sure the door locked behind him and followed her up the stairs. "So you're probably going to ask me about Sable Cicada's final performance, huh?"

"I'm actually more interested in what a film guru can tell me about her." She brushed past the costume racks and into the light room. Then backtracked and grabbed a shirt off the rack that looked more her style.

"She was on the verge of making it big. Paramount was already taking to her about a contract. However her manager was holding out for more money, hoping this play would make her more interesting to MGM too."

"You recorded it? Her last performance?" Shang asked and realized it was a stupid question. Of course he did, her father wouldn't pass up the opportunity to screen it when she went on to greater glory. Now, he could possibly benefit from it more being that she was dead.

"It will be playing at the Palace Theatre Friday night. Keen marketing sense, your father, show her last hours of life after her funeral."

"Yay Dad." She mumbled and picked at some left over peanuts on the desk.

"They're also screening the 1925 version of Wizard of OZ." Ci rubbed his hands together like an excited child at Christmas. "It had a short original run due to the film company going bankrupt and being unable to distribute it as it had intended. However, _that _is going to be the true gem! I've only read about it in magazines."

"Why, is it propaganda for William Jennings Bryan's presidential campaign?"

"No…but I'm impressed you know about that."

"Reaping the rewards of my book club membership." She sighed. It was going to suck if she had to return the book she'd been carrying all day and tell Cao Cao he was a genius.

"No, this film has pretty much nothing to do with the book, this play or the upcoming musical. It's completely out there. The Uncle is mean and treats Dorothy horribly and she's a flirtatious tease who has the farmhands wrapped around her finger and toys with their hearts. The Land of Oz is ruled by an evil dictator, she ends up being a Princess and the Tin Man is a villain. They even have underground prisons in that Oz."

"Sounds…depressing."

"Sounds like the version Sable should have been in. Considering what a bastard her father is and how she manipulated men in her life. "

"Ci, how much can you tell me about the real Diao Chan? You had to deal with her during practice and the production process of this play."

"She's like a combination of Theda Bara and Clara Bow. Innocence and charm, but a darkness underneath."

"I remember Ce having a think for Clara Bow." Shang chuckled.

"Still does. Or else he wouldn't be seeing that child Da Qiao. One of the girls who works the floor."

"You liked the other one though." Shang recalled. "Broke my heart that you liked the vamp."

"Theda Bara." Ci mused and puffed on his cigar remembering his first crush. "I appreciated the publicity it took to promote her character. There were stories the film company let leak to entice the public. Like that her name was an anagram for 'Arab Death'. People ate that up. Unfortunately, that one dimensional character got old."

"Hmmm…Sable Cicada. Black bug? How appealing is that?" Shang frowned hoping her stage name would reveal more.

"It's a singing bug that only comes out in the summer." Ci shrugged and shook the ash off of his cigar. "I can tell you one thing for certain, her father was a piece of work. Talked down to her, was in her dressing room when she was changing…way too hands on for a Dad."


	3. The Convoluted Plot

Murder of Sable Cicada

Chapter 3

The Convoluted Plot

* * *

_May 4,1939 Sable Cicada to be Buried Today_

Lu Xun looked at the paper as he fumbled with his keys to open the office door. He was less interested in the details about the funeral and more interested in his boss's plans to attend. He swung the door open and listened for any movement. He knew better, she was probably still sleeping. "Good Morning!"

Sun Shang Xiang groaned as her eyes fluttered open. The world looked bizarre and it took her a moment to figure out why. She looked at her feet which were propped up on the back of the couch and realized she had fallen asleep in some gravity defying position. Her first move would be crucial if she was going to avoid falling on her head.

Xun heard a thump that sounded like a body hitting the floor. Concerned he peaked in her office and looked at a Shang in a heap holding her head. "Sunny, what are you doing?"

"Rediscovering gravity." She grunted and just decided to lie down on the floor.

Xun tossed the newspaper at her and sat down in the chair at the desk to start reading the latest comic he picked up. _Detective Comics_ was his favorite series and it looked like they were introducing a new character, "The Bat-man".

Shang rubbed her eyes and looked at the paper. "Oh, yay. I get to go to a funeral. I hope you did your homework and found out what kind of guy Zhang Liao is."

"Yeah, I did." Xun mumbled as he was drawn into the comic.

"Good." Shang sat up and tossed the paper on the couch. "I'm sure he looks amazing in black. I need a dose of reality to keep my mind off that."

"He's not that bad. Might no be such a bad idea for you to start seeing someone again."

Shang squinted at him. "Why do you waste money on those comics?"

"I collect them." He said with a smile. "They'll be worth something someday."

"More than ten cents?" She asked and pulled herself on to the couch to prepare to stand up and feel the pains.

"You'd like this hero. He's a detective." Xun showed her the cover. "He's a millionaire whose parents were murdered. He uses his money to become a masked hero and kill criminals."

"He's wearing his underwear on the wrong side of his pants." Shang stood up and went to the mirror to see how bad she looked after sleeping like a bat. "God help us all if Cao Cao decides to follow that example."

"What about Zhang Liao?" Xun asked slyly.

"God help _me_." She whistled. "So what did you find out?"

"People are really scared of him. There are some police reports that say he scared some businessmen so bad they peed themselves. The cop actually wrote down the details about the piss."

"Makes me wet myself too." She mumbled and ran a comb through her hair.

"We're not talking about the same thing, are we?" Xun asked. "You're really hung up on this guy."

"He's taking me to Yuan Shao's ball this weekend." She looked at her image in the mirror and just didn't care what her hair looked like today. Curling it would take too long, so she'd just go with a flapper style for a retro look.

"Wow." Xun thought about the ramifications of that. "Are you sure about that? He's a criminal and your client that you shouldn't be advertising you're affiliated with. What about your Dad? He's going to be there and that's not going to be good."

"I plan on having this solved by then."

"Something you're not telling me about?" Xun asked.

"You first. Tell me more about Liao."

"Liao, huh?" Xun pulled his notes out. "Style name, Wenyuan. Born 1908 as Nie Liao then changed his name to Zhang. I can only assume because he didn't want to be associated with the assassin Nie Zheng who lived in Pu Yang."

"That guy in the song?" Shang asked. Cai Wengi was a blues singer in one of the nightclubs in town and her most popular song was based on a story her father told her as a little girl, "Nie Zheng Stabs the Han King".

"Weird huh?" Xun shrugged. "I don't know if he's related to the guy who killed the governor, but I wouldn't be surprised. He has a reputation of being incredibly skilled and people think he had something to do with Dong Zhuo's assassination."

Shang sat down in her chair. Well she knew that to be the case thanks to Lu Bu's shameless honesty. What was worse, gangster or assassin? "Great."

"I don't know, I always thought there was something really noble about what Nie did. Killed a governor who he felt was corrupt and then carved up his own face so nobody would know it was him, sparing his family the humiliation and shame."

"Like Robin Hood?"

"No…like the Bat-Man!" Xun flashed a smile at her and winked.

"Alright, so I'm probably employed by the son of an assassin who makes his living on the wrong side of the law with his best friend Lu Bu." She frowned.

"I also found out that Lu Bu was officially adopted by Dong Zhuo before he died, which means that he was entitled to everything the guy owned. The insurance company wouldn't release the life insurance policy since nobody was convicted in the killing and the prime suspect was Lu Bu. I guess most of Dong Zhuo's assets were seized by the government anyhow."

Shang perked up. "So what does he still own? Something that is valuable enough to frame him for murder and have him executed?"

"Still digging." Xun looked through his notes. "I only had time to wade through birth, marriage and death certificates."

"Nothing on Chan?"

"No. I need more to go on."

"Pang Tong said she was in her 20's and Lu Bu said she remembered him in the parade from the War." She groaned. "This isn't helping. I'll have to talk to Wang Yun and see what he has to say."

"Sunny, are you sure you want to do this? Last time you went around questioning people Gongsun Zan shot his family, set his house on fire and hung himself."

"Why does everyone say that like it's a bad thing? I mean, he was guilty of laundering money for his old classmate Liu Bei."

"Um…the six kids weren't." He said with a frown.

"I didn't put the gun in his hand! He panicked when confronted with the consequences of his actions." She glared at Xun. She was tired of people trying to place the guilt on her for that.

"All I'm saying is that we might be digging too deep. Back then you just wanted to find out about Liu Bei and you did. However it wasn't good enough and you kept looking for answers to things that didn't concern you. Those people might still be alive..."

"Two minutes ago you were ready to wear your underwear wrong, put on a cape and don a mask to avenge the wrongs and bring people to justice."

"Yeah but…."

"Sometimes the truth hurts. That's not going to stop me from looking for it. Justice might be blindfolded, but that might just be her problem."

"Ok." He let his shoulders slump in defeat. "I'll let Meng know we need his help. Anything I need to research?"

"The Xu Dam. Yuan Shao's bank was tied up in that land sale somehow. Cao Cao was trying to dangle that in front of my eyes for some reason I want to know what he has to gain from that."

"Yuan Shao is his biggest rival. I'm sure if you could get him to shoot his family and hang himself, Cao Cao would be thrilled."

"I also need to find out what the racetrack has to do with my father's casino."

"I can answer that." Xun grabbed the paper and opened it to the sports section. There was an article about the upcoming Kentucky Derby above the fold, but a more local report of the upgrade of Liang Down's facilities below the fold. "Here. Ma Teng's track is expanding the clubhouse to have a casino."

"No way." Shang grabbed the paper and her eyes grew wide.

"He was instrumental in having a new gaming commissioner appointed in order to have his license approved. Liu Biao?"

"Oh Daddy, that must really be keeping you up at night."

"There's a little bit about this new commissioner in the paper. Says he wants to remain neutral in regards to his position and that he won't overlook corruption."

"Alright. We meet here tonight. I need to run a few errands and make sure I put in an appearance at Chan's funeral. Tell Meng that this story is going to be huge."

* * *

Shang peered around the corner of the huge hanger door and looked for signs of life. She had come out to the airport to interrogate Xiahou Dun about his involvement with Diao Chan but it appeared that he was not alone. It wasn't a bad thing, if his extended family was here she hoped they might just be able to decode the encrypted message that Cao Cao had left her with after his discussion on the train. His help made no sense and if anyone could tell her what he wanted it was his family. She waited in the shadows to see if there was anything she could use against the man, though she doubted he'd keep evidence of his smuggling where it was all too accessable.

"Wrench." Xiahou Yuan demanded.

Xiahou Dun leaned against the side of the Ford Tri-Motor airplane and lit a cigarette. He bent down and picked up a wrench and handed it to the plump outstretched hand then went back to waiting. "Hurry up, Ren, he's not going to stay in there forever and I don't want to grease him back up and shove him in again."

Cao Ren put his glasses back on and scrutinized the engine plans again. "You know, the Germans are using Zeppelins more and more these days. Not as quick but certainly more efficient."

"If I wanted to fly an unsightly blob filled with explosive gas, I'll tie a kite string to my brother and kick him off the roof." Dun thumped his head against the plane impatiently.

"Ha ha." Yuan responded from inside the engine compartment. "Let's see how far you get without a mechanic or navigator, hot shot!"

"Let's see how far you get without me to pull you out of that access compartment." Dun replied.

"Oldsmobile announced an automatic transmission for their new models next year. Can you imagine that?" Ren's finger traced over the prints and he frowned.

"Yuan…" Dun groaned.

"Just tell him you'll take him to the World's Fair, Dun. He'll stop." Yuan threw the wrench on the ground and his hand emerged. "Screwdriver."

"I have a whole list of interesting facts to talk about, cousin." Ren smirked.

Sun Shang Xiang had been standing by the hanger door eavesdropping on Cao Cao's family hoping to hear something incriminating, but so far these three seemed like ordinary guys. She walked into the hanger and immediately picked out Xiahou Dun. Not that it took a detective to find the man wearing an eye patch in a crowd of two, but his aura seemed to scream 'cocky'. He looked over at her and said nothing. He was dressed simply, slacks and a blue shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

"Hello…" Ren set his glasses down on the table and looked at the woman who was scrutinizing them. "This is a private hanger, are you lost?"

"She found what she was looking for." Dun threw the cigarette on the ground and put it out with his foot. "Didn't you lady?"

"Find what? A fire hazard? Dammit Dun, this stuff is flammable…" Yuan hissed as he tried to reach an oil stained rag with his foot before the cigarette butt ignited it.

Dun casually reached over for an old cup of coffee and threw it on the smoldering cloth. "You a reporter?"

"I'm a private eye." Shang replied.

"Great. A broad with a gun." Dun scoffed and began to walk towards her to drag her out of the hanger.

"Watch yourself or you might end up losing that other eye." Shang threatened.

"There's a better chance of you putting my eye out with what's on your chest, not what's strapped to it." Dun kept walking and was surprised when she began to walk toward him.

"You're a real ladies man, aren't you? I can see what Diao Chan saw in you: her condescending abusive father. No wonder you were her guilty little pleasure."

"Dun!" Ren ran up and put himself between his cousin and the young woman.

"Dammit! I'm stuck!" Yuan whined as his legs swung freely around the side of the plane. "Is she hot?"

"Perhaps you can tell me about your relationship with Sable Cicada, or do I need to tip off the ATF on what your cargo is that plane over on Xu Dam?" She snapped hoping that Sima Yi's information was accurate.

"You want to just hear the graphic details or do you want me to show you?" Dun asked as his cousin shoved him back towards the plane.

Shang coldly replied. "Now I understand why Germany started rearming itself. I'd want another chance to shoot at you too."

"Is she taking her clothes off?" Yuan hollered and struggled some more. "Ouch!"

Dun rolled his eyes and went to rescue his brother from the confines of the plane. "Stop struggling."

"I don't want to miss anything!" Yuan whined and let his brother help him out of the plane. He hit the hanger floor with a thump and immediatly looked at the woman standing there staring at them. "Wow. She's a fox."

"Excuse my brother," Dun reached for his cigarettes. "He has extremely low standards."

She already knew this was a waste of time. This wasn't the kind of man who would try to get away with murder, he would probably ask for a medal for doing the world a favor. "I'm investigating the murder of Sable Cicada. Do you deny that you had relations with her?"

"Nope. I did her." Dun lit his smoke and looked at the girl. "So now we're back to those details you're dying to find out about. You look like a back seat kind of girl, best I can do here is that LaSalle over there."

"Dun!" Ren snapped. "She's a lady!"

"I see pants, a poorly concealed revolver and a nice rack." Dun shrugged. "Looks like someone's little girl trying to assert her independence and I'm sure her innocence is already long gone. How good is my detective work, Miss Sun?"

She wasn't surprised he knew who she was. The other two seemed surprised, but somehow she expected as much from him. Cao Cao's favorite cousin and confidant would know as much as the railroad baron himself.

"I do like women in pants." Yuan nodded appreciatively.

"How would you know?" Dun threw a rag at him as he walked towards the office on the upper level of the hanger. "Your eyes haven't left her tits since you fell out of that plane."

She held her hand out for the man next to her to shake. "Sun Shang Xiang, private investigator."

"Cao Ren, engineer." Ren bent slightly to kiss her hand in a gentlemanly gesture.

Yuan heard his brother's footsteps as he marched up to the office and rolled out from under the plane. He wiped his hands off and jumped to his feet. "Xiahou Yuan, sidekick extraordinaire. Navigator, mechanic…exceptional lover. Everything my brother isn't."

Shang shook his hand and smiled. That smile disappeared as the door to the office upstairs slammed as Xiahou Dun disappeared. "I'm just looking for information."

"I'm looking for a long-term commitment from an independent woman who isn't afraid to dominate me socially and sexually. I also enjoy Swing dancing and long walks on the runway." Yuan gave her his most adorable grin. "I like puppies too."

"I'll keep that in mind." Shang took the rag from his hand and wiped a wad of grease from his cheek. "However I'm still recovering from a bad relationship."

"Was he a Sable Cicada fanboy?" Yuan asked, curious as to why a pretty girl would be submerging herself in a murder mystery.

"Actually he was a bootlegger who blew up his manufacturing plant, killing his wife and abandoning his son."

"So he was a married man…you _do_ like living dangerously." Yuan threw his hands in the air. "I'll save myself for you! When your undeniable love for me is too much to bear, I'll be here waiting for you."

Ren watched him begin to dance his way back to the plane. "They are my _distant_ cousins."

"You're going to the World's Fair?" She asked, wanting to put herself on someone else's good side.

"If we ever fix this plane." Ren said with a heavy sigh. "However your problems are a bit more urgent. Are you sure you still want to question my cousin?"

"Yes." She then thought about something as they passed the table with all the engine schematics. "You said you were an engineer?"

"Not the kind that runs the trains." Yuan poured himself another cup of coffee. "That would be too interesting."

Ren ignored him. "Yes."

"Did you work on the Xu Dam?" She knew it had no relevance to the case, but after seeing those pictures in Xia Pi, she thought there might be another crime that needed to be solved if she survived this case.

"Yes, that was my work." He paused. "Though I can't be proud of it knowing how many lives it claimed…"

"Not your fault." Yuan shook his head. "You built it, you helped save Chang An from drying up."

"Alfred Nobel thought his inventions benefited humanity, however…" Ren sighed.

"Those people were misled and died because of it." Shang squeezed his arm. "They believed they owned property that wasn't theirs and thought that their occupation would mean something. They died for that decision and one day whoever deceived them will be brought to justice."

"What a woman." Yuan hugged himself. "Solving crimes, bringing wrongdoers to justice….a huge gun! Our children will save the world!"

"If I can help your investigation, please let me know. That project still haunts me. The hydroelectric plant was another misguided effort. It's now in the hands of the co-op and electric bills have doubled instead of decreased."

"The electric plant." Shang said. "That's owed by the town."

"No, its articles of incorporation have it as a co-operative so it's not able to be governed by the State Utilities commission. It's an elected board of directors, so they can get away with just about anything."

"Who is the chairman?"

"Yuan Shu."

"The Police Chief?"

"More like a self- proclaimed Emperor." Yuan scratched his back with a wrench.

"This city will remain corrupt as long as he is in power of key offices." Ren lamented. "You're not here to solve that crime though; you're here about that poor actress."

"Is he going to talk to me?" She asked and looked up at the closed office door.

"Doubtful." Ren said. "He's probably calling security now."

"However…" Yuan said as he tasted his coffee. "He won't have much of a choice if you stowaway in the cabin of the Ford here. We're almost done tinkering; he's going to have to take her on a test flight."

"I do believe you're very close to winning my heart, Mr. Xiahou."

"Give me a peck on the cheek and I'll log that your fare has been paid." Yuan grinned.

Ren held out his pack of chewing gum. "Start chewing this before you get in the cabin. You'll need it to help equalize the pressure in your head as the plane gains altitude. If Dun smells Spearmint as soon as he gets in the plane, I'm sure he'll figure out something is going on."

"Thanks." Shang smiled and took the offered stick and began chewing.

"The parachutes are stowed under the seats. Just in case…." Ren informed her.

Shang's eyebrows rose. If it was safer to march up those stairs and point a gun at Dun's head…

"In case my brother gets pissed and decides to 'repel boarders'." Yuan gave her a confident smile. "Trust me, none of my planes will ever come down due to mechanical malfunction. I'm just that good."

"That's…comforting."

* * *

Shang threw the canvas tarp off when she figured the plane was safely in the air. She spit the gum out and stood up. The engine noise made her ears ring even though she was back in the passenger area. She couldn't see this mode of travel ever catching on even though Pan Am had already announced the successful trans-Atlantic flight of their plane Yankee Clipper. Who would pay to endure this discomfort?

"Goddammit Yuan." Dun mumbled as he turned to see what the rustling was in the cabin. He reached for his box of smokes, shook it and then placed the exposed one on his tongue. He struck a match on the roof of the cockpit and lit it.

Shang slipped into the co-pilot's seat and buckled in. She wasn't really too convinced this war hero wouldn't throw her out of the plane. "I like the convenience factor of having a private railroad spur that leads to your armament warehouse. Waterfront property, right on a lake famous for decomposing bodies in the water so there won't be any tourists watching you load guns on your shiny cargo plane."

Dun smiled. Two could play at that game. "Not true. I hear they're having a fish fry over at the lake this Sunday. Liu Bei is frying up catfish he and his pauper pals caught in the lake to feed the poor. That's almost like eating people, considering those damned bottom feeders eat nothing but garbage. The fish, I mean but I guess that applies to Liu Bei's followers too. Unless he runs with a different crowd than those refugees in Guanling now?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh, that's not why you broke up with him?" Dun said with a mischievous grin. "He married Mi Zhi's sister so that he could use the man's money to fund his little refugee camp. The money ran out, the supplies vanished and the poor folks turned to cannibalism."

"Where the hell is Guangling? I've never heard of it." She said, wondering if he'd just make up some story like that. He and his cousin seemed to enjoy twisting the truth more than spinning lies.

"South of Xu Dam. Under the river now thanks to the Dam." Dun blew some smoke out and thought about his cousin Ren's restless nights. "That Dam should have been a blessing wiping out Xu and Guangling after all the horrors that happened there. Instead my family is plagued by humanitarians who want to blame us for those fools that followed Zhang Jiao into that valley before the floodgates opened."

She grabbed a hold of the armrests as he circled around a radio tower for the fun of it. "Zhang Jiao? That traveling magician?"

"The con artist." Dun corrected her. He leveled out the plane and let it climb to the necessary altitude to clear the ridgeline of the mountain. "Why? Do you think my cousin flooded Xu so I could have a parking lot for my plane?"

"Quite a coincidence."

He laughed. "Good thing you have your looks lady. That's a pretty weak motive."

"What about Yuan Shao's bank owning the notes on the property down there? The same bank that those people had their money with when the stock market crashed?"

"Don't know." Dun banked sharp to the left and headed towards Tong Pass. "Sounds like something you should ask my cousin next time you play train robber. He was friends with Yuan Shao, not me."

She shivered and dropped her pencil. "Damn it's cold up here."

"My brother's old greatcoat is behind the seat. It won't be _that_ big, he was a bit slimmer back then. This new Swing dancing hobby of his is turning him into a steer. I guess you owe him a date for letting you on this plane."

"Cheap flight, it only cost me a kiss." She said and slipped into the gabardine coat. "More of the ballroom dancer kind of guy, yourself huh?"

"Want to see how well I Waltz?" He gave her a mischievous grin. "Hang on doll."

She felt her stomach fly into the roof of her mouth as the plane dove down towards Silk Road. "Are you crazy?"

"Possibly." He said and pulled up and leveled out.

"You're not seriously going to fly through Tong Pass Tunnel?"

"Yup."

"It's too small!"

"I'm pretty good with slipping into tight spaces." Dun tapped the ashes off his cigarette as they entered the tunnel and she cringed. "I guess that's irrelevant since we're supposed to be talking about Sable Cicada."

Shang closed her eyes as a box truck entered the tunnel. "Oh god."

He dropped the plane down lower and watched a box truck come to an abrupt stop. Then it quickly shifted into reverse and Dun smiled. "That's what she said."

As the truck backed out into oncoming traffic, the plane barely glided over the top of it. She took a deep breathe. "I don't think I'm ever flying Cao Air again."

"Can't test out a plane without seeing what she'll handle." He let the plane gain altitude again. "Good thing you weren't around back in the days of bi-planes. Those things were nothing but wood planks, glue and canvas."

"I'll count my blessings when I get back on the ground."

He blew smoke in her face. "Remember that next time you try to get free fare."

"Were you just with Chan, once?" She could see the airport in the distance and had yet to ask him anything about her actual case.

"Yup. That war memorial dedication." He shrugged. "I wasn't going to say no."

"Did you want to rekindle the moment?"

"Nope." He shook off more ashes in the coffee cup.

She almost didn't want to ask. "Why?"

"Something just wasn't right about her. It wasn't lust or libido; it was some sick self-destructive need to destroy her body. Not my style."

"You got all that from one quickie at a ribbon cutting ceremony?"

"No, I got that from a night long discussion about her when I was playing Monopoly with my cousin. Do you have any idea how long that game takes to play?"

"Sorry, my family game night always revolved around real money." She looked at the landing strip and tried to come up with more questions before her time was up. "Why were you even at that ceremony? You really don't seem to be a people person."

"My cousin got it in his head that I'm going to be governor one day. He threatened to keep me grounded if I didn't go."

"I thought you two were close, practically brothers."

"He likes getting his way." Dun shrugged. "Nobody likes being around him when he doesn't."

"Sounds like my mother." If that's how he dealt with his closest friend, than why the hell was he so friendly on the train? "Governor, huh?"

"I guess he figures I'm the kind of guy who will cut off the hands of the corrupt officials greasing their palms." Dun began to prepare for landing. "Or at least that's what he tells me."

"I wouldn't think you'd be anyone's choice for a puppet."

Dun grinned as they nearly touched the tarmac, then jerked up on the stick and reveled in the scream as the plane looped over itself and then touched its wheels down as he first intended. "Thanks for flying CaoAir."

* * *

Shang sat on a tombstone and held her binoculars to her face. She had wanted to go to the funeral but she figured Lu Bu would be himself and come up and talk with her. She didn't need him broadcasting to the world that she knew him, half the town knew she was working this case and thankfully nobody drew any conclusions as to who she was working for yet.

"Miss Sun, why doesn't it surprise me you have no respect for the dead either."

Shang ground her teeth as she put her glasses down. She looked up at the boyish face of the man whom she simply couldn't stand. "Zhao Yun, that drab government issue uniform suits you."

Yun frowned. He was wearing a suit, not a uniform. "Miss Sun, it's Special Agent Zhao now."

"I heard." She jumped off the tombstone and began to walk away. "That must mean you're here to take credit for my work again to upgrade agencies. What's next? The Secret Service?"

"You were a person of interest in that Gongsun murder. Perhaps you don't fully understand the gravity of the situation you placed yourself in."

"I am fully acquainted with gravity and what a bitch she is." She growled and kept walking though she felt the bump on her head throb.

"I say that because you have managed to put yourself in the same position, yet again. Miss Sun, Lu Bu is the prime suspect in this murder and you are working for his associate to find evidence to clear him. That makes you an accessory."

"Then arrest me." She stopped and turned back to look at him.

"I am just doing my job, Miss Sun."

"By putting me under surveillance?"

"You are connected to multiple suspects. You also have a history of harassing people to the point of suicide."

"And we're back on the subject of your next promotion." She stared at him and crossed her arms.

"No, we're on the subject of caution. I think you've once again stumbled on something that you shouldn't have. You have a knack for it."

"You're threatening me?"

"No." He watched the funeral crowd begin to disperse. "However I will if that makes you more inclined to heed my warning."

"What are you trying to hide? I know you love the government more than anyone, so which branch are you protecting? The Federal Reserve for not coming down on Yuan Shao? The TVA for the construction of the dam?"

"Be careful, Miss Sun." Yun nodded and looked down at Zhang Liao. "Especially with your client."

"Maybe you should be studying him, might give you a few ideas on how to talk to women."

Yun looked over his shoulder as two policemen arrived. "These kind men are here to escort you out of the cemetery and give you a place to spend the night."

"You're placing me under arrest? For what?" She snapped and marched toward him.

"Assaulting a Federal Officer." He replied and closed his eyes as her fist made contact with his jaw. He stumbled backward and licked the blood from his lip. "Thank you."

"Alright, what exactly is going on here?" Huang Zhong twirled his baton and frowned when his rookie partner drew his gun and pointed it at the two people. "Kid, put that damned thing away."

"It's protocol." Jiang Wei whined. He hated being wrong all the time and his partner was always quick to point it out.

"Easy, kid. Don't want to misfire. It happens to a lot of youngsters." Zhong walked up and took a look at the man who had been assaulted and the girl who looked ready to pummel him into oblivion. "What's wrong pretty boy? More than you can handle?"

"Officer, I want her placed under arrest for assaulting a Federal Agent."

Zhong stroked his white beard and laughed. "You expect me to believe that you're capable of firing up a woman like this, Agent Zhao?"

"Just do your job, sir." Zhao Yun turned and began to walk back to his car.

"Prick." Zhong growled.

"I don't understand. How did he know he was going to be attacked? He called dispatch almost half an hour ago." Jiang Wei put his gun away and pulled out his handcuffs. He frowned as the lady and his partner stood there staring at him like he was an idiot. "What?"

"They issue you a crystal ball when you get your FBI ID. That way you can see the future and act quick." Zhong rolled his eyes.

"So he set her up?" Wei asked.

"You're catching on kid." Zhong shook his head. "Sorry, he's book smart but street stupid."

"So am I under arrest?" She asked and looked down at the funeral that she was missing. So much for talking to Wang Yun.

"Psht." Zhong sat down on the tombstone and looked at her. "Nope. Why don't you tell us what you two were discussing?"

"He was threatening me because my client hired me to find out who killed Sable Cicada. In the course of my investigation I might have found something that I wasn't supposed to."

"Like what?" Zhong asked. "It sounds like you might need a few friends who still believe in justice."

"Not to mention career suicide." Wei mumbled.

"Why do you think we're patrolling the worst neighborhood? You're not on the take so you're a liability." Zhong looked at the young woman who was quietly watching them. "Miss Sun, it's a pleasure to meet you. Pang Tong asked us to watch out for you. I'm Huang Zhong and this youngster is Jiang Wei."

"Shiyuan sent you?"

"Yeah." Zhong rubbed his knee. "He said you might be able to help us out with the little Yuan Shu problem we're having. So why don't you come with us, get in the back of our police car and listen to two cops talk about work while we drive you around the block a couple of times."

"Especially since Agent Zhao is waiting for us by our car." Wei frowned.

"Cuff me." She said.

"Hand your gun to the young man. I don't need him going in that jacket to fetch it and my heart can't take that kind of excitement either." Zhong scratched his beard. "I'm getting forgetful in my old age, what was it you were doing wrong?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?" Jiang Wei asked and frowned.

"My god, Junior, are you really that gullible?"

* * *

Huang Zhong began humming to himself. "Whoops, missed the turn back to the station."

Shang wasn't really thrilled with being in the back seat of a police car, but it was free transportation and she wasn't really upset about that. "This is the second time today that I've had someone mention Yuan Shu."

"Oh, who was the first?" Zhong asked, curious as to who else he could befriend.

"Cao Ren." She said.

Jiang Wei nodded and smiled. "He's a really good guy."

Shang raised her eyebrows. "And how do you know him?"

"I worked for Cao Cao as a clerk before I was accepted into the police academy. Cao Ren was kind enough to teach me how to read blueprints."

"You used to work for Cao Cao?" She clarified.

"Don't hold it against him." Zhong listened to some chatter on the radio and decided to hurry things along. The police force was overwhelmed with crimes these days and he really needed to pass along the information to her before they had a real problem they had to attend to. "Don't hold it against the cops that things are what they are either. Funding dropped for us too and we had to take a 20% paycut back in '33. A lot of the guys had families to feed, they weren't left with much choice than accept bribes to make ends meet. I know that doesn't make things better, but it's a hard time for everyone."

"What about Yuan Shu?" She asked and pulled out her notepad. "Is he related to Yuan Shao?"

Jiang Wei piped up, it was now his turn to shine. "Yuan Shu is his younger bastard half-brother. So they grew up as cousins since they had different moms and in the Victorian era it was pretty risqué to admit an affaire like that. Eventually Shu found out and wanted what his birthright entitled him to, but Shao refused to give him anything. So he had to make his own way in the world by accepting money from anyone who would give it to him. He was part of some alliance with Yuan Shao to try and unseat Dong Zhuo from his position as chief crime boss in the city, but Shu ratted him out and got the Police Chief job as a reward."

Shang sighed. This wasn't helping. "Does he have anything to do with Sable Cicada's death?"

"Might." Jiang Wei turned around to look at her. "When Dong Zhuo was killed, he proclaimed himself his successor. He said that it was logical because he controlled the police who could 'exorcize the demons of Chang An. Organized crime, bootlegging and bribery run deep and the profits clearly end up in the pockets of the already rich.' He actually stood in front of all the reporters, on the steps of city hall and said that Lu Bu, Cao Cao, Sun Jian and Yuan Shao were the evils causing the city to bleed out it's prosperity. All the cops were lined up on the steps behind him to prove what he had backing him."

"I remember that." Shang shook her head. "I didn't think anyone took him seriously. I remember my father laughing so hard he cried."

"I don't think anyone really did. However he used that to his advantage and took control of everything he said he would destroy." Zhong interjected. "Now he needs to eliminate the competition and your pal Lu Bu is first on his list."

"Why?" Shang asked. She wasn't drawing any conclusions from this story other than the Yuan brothers needed therapy.

Wei smiled. "He's the weakest organization with the most assets that Yuan Shu wants. Lu Bu still controls the extortion business here in the city and he does a really good job of it. He is scary and so is his buddy Zhang Liao. However they've expanded to blackmailing Yuan Shu's established black market holdings, underground gambling houses, brothels, you name it."

"Really." Shang had to smile. She really had to like Lu Bu and Liao's motives. It might have still been a crime, but it just seemed like justice.

"Shu can increase his assets and wealth before he targets the big boys." Zhong chimed in. "That girl's death put a spotlight on this town. Now the nation knows where Chang An is and we're seeing reporters from the New York Times, the Washington Post, Life….who ever thought we'd be so famous."

Shang looked at her hand and noticed it was swelling a bit now. "We are even blessed by the return of everyone's hero, Zhao Yun."

"That's because he used to work for Yuan Shao." Jiang Wei pulled out his own notepad. "Gongsun San and Liu Bei."

Shang felt her heart stop. "I'm sorry, say that again."

"Zhao Yun's a whore." Zhong summarized it.

Jiang Wei slapped his notepad shut. "The jury is still out on what he's really trying to do. We know the FBI has some rather unscrupulous tactics in waging their 'War on Crime' so I wouldn't put it past him to be trying to infiltrate the organizations he thinks are the enemy."

"Whores do what pays them most." Zhong said and went to loop around the block again. "Where do you want us to drop you off, kid?"

Shang looked at her watch. "I better get back home. I have an office on Market St." _Meng is not going to believe this!_

"We really don't know what side he's on." Wei said.

"Don't really care either. This is our town and it's up to us to clean it up." Zhong slammed his fist on the steering wheel.

Shang began to make the connections. "So if Yuan Shu had this actress killed, he stands to gain more than just Lu Bu's empire. National attention would certainly start dredging up some details about Cao Cao and Yuan Shao as well."

"Speaking of dredging," Zhong looked at her in the rearview mirror. "What do you know about Xu Dam?"

Wei jumped at the opportunity to answer this question correctly. "Did you know that there is no record of the police being called to escort those people out of Xu?"

"Cao Cao never called?" She asked.

"The page is missing from the dispatcher transcripts for that day." Wei grinned.

"Easy way to get a noose made for both Cao Cao and Yuan Shao." Zhong said with a shake of his head.

"You two really haven't given me many answers, just more questions." Shang grunted as they turned onto Market Street.

"I have a good one for you." Zhong said. "Since you're working to clear Lu Bu, why don't you ask him why Yuan Shu wants to marry his daughter?"

"Lu Bu doesn't have a daughter." Shang looked to Wei who was ready to explode now that she stepped into the trap.

"When he went to Europe to fight in the Great War, he got a nurse pregnant. Yuan Shu must have used it against him; he intercepted a letter from the girl's mother begging Lu Bu to take the girl. Said the kid was preparing to join the resistance and was already doing spy work against the Nazis. Her Mom was concerned for her daughter's safety and Lu Bu was trying to get her to the US and to safety. Yuan Shu found out about it, he has people in every division of the city."

"Yuan Shu gave Lu Bu a marriage license instead. Obviously looking to marry the girl for her citizenship as well as buy him Lu Bu." Zhong looked up at the mirror again as he stopped the car. "'Put it on before you put it in', that's what they tell the boys these days. Probably should have done a better job of it the first time we went to Europe."

"How did you find all this?" Shang asked as Zhong got out of the car to open her door for her.

Zhong smiled. "Junior's planning on being a detective when he grows up."

Jiang Wei smiled. "I broke into Yuan Shu's office to find incriminating evidence and found it."

"We're still working on teaching him how to not say everything that comes into his head." Zhong held out his hand to help the girl out of the car, then handed her revolver back. "Be careful kid. Your investigation hasn't gone unnoticed. Don't put it past the career criminals to frame you for something."

"I think opening someone else's mail is a Federal crime. Maybe you should tip off Zhao Yun, that's his jurisdiction." Shang squeezed his hand as she heard the radio in the car crackle to life. "Thank you."

Jiang Wei's voice hit a pitch he didn't think possible after puberty. "Zhong! Holy cow! Wang Yun has been killed!"

"That's weird. I thought that guy was just an incestuous pig. Think your boy Lu Bu did this?"

"I think if he wanted him dead, we wouldn't be talking about it now." Shang shrugged.

"Well, if we find out anything we'll tell Pang Tong." Zhong winked.

Shang watched the older cop jump back into the car and take off. "Dammit. I'm not getting paid enough for this job."

* * *

Lu Meng took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes. "Why don't you focus on what you're being paid to investigate?"

Lu Xun answered for his boss. "She's too distracted by her client to focus."

"Am I invisible?" Shang snapped. "Is that why you two are talking about me like I'm not in the room?"

"Perhaps," Meng pulled a flask out of his inside pocket, "It's a skill you should try to acquire. Your public hunt for the truth is only going to lead down the same road as that Gongsun Zan fiasco. Do you know what the meaning of discreet is?"

"I'm not in the mood for a lecture." She growled.

"Sunny, I think Meng is right. I mean the whole town is talking about you." Xun sighed. "That's only going to get worse when you go to that ball with Zhang Liao."

"You are going on a date with your client?" Meng gasped.

"It's the only way I'm going to get close to the important men in this city." She shook her head. "I don't care what it looks like."

Xun sat up in his chair and began to read off the summarized notes from the meeting thus far. "So with the new information about Yuan Shu and Lu Bu's daughter, who exactly is the prime suspect?"

"For the murder of Sable Cicada." Meng said and took a swig of moonshine. "In case you forgot your priorities."

Shang sat back in her swivel chair and stared at the newspaper on her desk. "I think it's all relevant. It isn't just a simple murder. I think Yuan Shu is trying to control Chang An. My first suspects were Cao Cao and Sima Yi so I started my investigation with them. If an outside reporter were to look deeper into the Xu Dam incident, I don't think it would be hard to crucify Cao Cao for it. Sima Yi seems amused by it all; I don't know what he'd get out of it."

"Chang An." Xun said. "You said it yourself, nobody takes Yuan Shu seriously. Well maybe once he does the dirty work, Sima Yi will take over where he left off? He is really cunning, when you look at a historical account of his business dealings you get a feel for how he likes to play."

"Cheating at cards is his hobby." Shang said quietly. "I can imagine how he uses that to his advantage elsewhere. Otherwise he couldn't be a millionaire at age 27."

"A man who made millions in an economic depression." Meng said and put his glasses back on. "The man's a genius."

"What about Yuan Shao?" Shang asked. "Does he look as guilty in the hall of records for the Xu Dam incident as I thought?"

"Worse." Xun said quietly. "Much worse."

"Which I will take care of." Meng stretched. "I do see an expose worthy of front page news."

"What about my Dad?" Shang was avoiding asking the question.

"I think that's going to depend on the newly appointed Gaming Commissioner, Liu Biao." Meng shook his head. "The world is changing, Shang, and your father still thinks he can use his prestige and courage to bully his peers."

"I know." She took a deep breathe. "So our focus is on Yuan Shu."

"Which puts us in serious danger." Xun added.

"As can be seen by the recent death of Wang Yun." Meng said quietly then thought on that a little more. "Who would want him silenced?"

"Lu Bu?" Xun suggested.

"Why would Sima Yi care about the racetrack?" Shang suddenly thought about that detail as she opened up the paper and began browsing the articles.

"Ma Teng." Meng said quietly. "He's going to try and destroy your father. When that happens, a rather lucrative business will open up."

"Ma Teng." Xun said quietly. "That name is familiar."

"He tried to assassinate Cao Cao." Meng said quietly. "He and Liu Bei, but it failed."

"So I guess I know who tipped off the ATF to the moon shiner's haven at Chang Ban. My book club president, Cao Cao." Shang said and then added. "Let me guess, Ma Teng was a member of the Populist Party."

"Yes." Meng said with a nod. "He grew up in poverty, he married a migrant worker and together they had half-breed children. Due to that he would never be welcomed by Society's snobs no matter how hard he worked. He worked the land, trained wild horses to race and farmed. Populists hated the railroads that hauled their grains to market and made them pay dearly for it and the banks that provided them with high interest loans. They were enslaved by those two necessary evils and lost most of their profits to them. I'm actually surprised they haven't made more attempts on Cao Cao's life."

"Awesome." Shang sighed. "Looks like I might have to dance with Cao Cao."

"Don't forget to give him back his book." Meng stood. "Last thing you want is to be indebted to him for anything."

"One more thing." Shang said and thought about Xiahou Dun's comments from earlier. "What does Zhang Jiao the magic man have to do with those people returning to Xu?"

Meng thought about it. "Zhang Jiao. I wrote an article trying to expose him as a fraud a couple of years ago. He used to perform some cheap parlor tricks for people and try to peddle some medicines and charms."

"Is it possible that he was involved with those people at Xu? Could he be the one who sold them on the idea that the land was worth something?"

Meng smiled. "Not only that, but I'm sure he actually sold those notes to the gullible and made a profit."


End file.
